BIRDS AND POETS. 173 



" The low-roosted lark 

 From its thatched pallet roused" 



never sprang up on sublimer flights than did this Poet, 



" Swift as a spirit hastening to his task 



Of glory and of good, " 



" Sunward now his flight he raises^ 



Catches fire, as seems, and blazes 

 With uninjured plumes." 



With all this flashing wonder of his far and graceful wing- 

 ing, yet is that shrill delight we hear showering a rain of 

 melody, while soaring he still sings the voice of our 

 humanity, mellow and rich with old familiar tones. Still 

 we are " overcome, as by a summer cloud," with admiration 

 of this most chaste and sacred enthusiasm, which seems to 

 be mounting, on its own joy, to shake the earth-dews from 

 its pinions off into their old fountains up to the sky ! 



Ah, what a charming symbol is it, of the wild, unconquer- 

 able might of Love ! Though its cradle and its common 

 home is on the base glebe, yet its exultations will not be 

 weighed down and tamed but must as well mount to glad- 

 den all above linking, in "subtle silvery sweetness" the 

 dust-trodden with the starry fields! Shelley most beauti- 

 fully characterizes that marvellous and indefinable sympathy 

 between the Earth and the Human Poetry which we have 

 been endeavoring to illustrate in one of the concluding 

 stanzas to the Skylark ! 



" Better than all measures, 



Of delighful sound ; 

 Better than all treasures, 



That in books are found, 

 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground." 



But, ah, wo is me ! Weep now, Urania thou eldest muse 

 for him 1 That harmony paused 



