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Oh madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land,
With love–with love.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers!
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!
High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves:
Surely you must know who is here, is here;
You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.

Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, oh I think you could give my mate back again,
if you only would;
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.

O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth;
Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want.

Shake out, carols!
Solitary here–the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death’s carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
Oh, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless, despairing carols.

But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur;
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea;
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
So faint–I must be still, be still to listen!
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately
to me.

Hither, my love!
Here I am! Here!
With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you;
This gentle call is for you, my love, for you.

Do not be decoyed elsewhere!
That is the whistle of the wind–it is not my voice;
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray;
Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! Oh in vain!
Oh I am very sick and sorrowful.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The bird that occupies the second place to the nightingale in British poetical literature is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the Philomel is an arboreal,– a creature of light and air and motion, the companion of the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester,–whose nest is in the stubble and whose tryst is in the clouds. Its life affords that kind of contrast which the imagination loves,–one moment a plain pedestrian bird, hardly distinguishable from the ground, the next a soaring, untiring songster, reveling in the upper air, challenging the eye to follow him and the ear to separate his notes.

The lark’s song is not especially melodious, but is blithesome, sibilant, and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where the bird makes its home, abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all alike and all in the same key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, showering down as thick and fast as drops of rain in a summer shower.

Many noted poets have sung the praises of the lark, or been kindled by his example. Shelley’s ode and Wordsworth’s “To a Skylark” are well known to all readers of poetry, while every schoolboy will recall Hogg’s poem, beginning:–

“Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place–
Oh to abide in the desert with thee!”

I heard of an enthusiastic American who went about English fields hunting a lark with Shelley’s poem in his hand, thinking no doubt to use it as a kind of guide-book to the intricacies and harmonies of the song. He reported not having heard any larks, though I have little doubt they were soaring and singing about him all the time, though of course they did not sing to his ear the song that Shelley heard. The poets are the best natural historians, only you must know how to read them. They translate the facts largely and freely. A celebrated lady once said to Turner, “I confess I cannot see in nature what you do.” “Ah, madam,” said the complacent artist, “don’t you wish you could!”