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O voice of passionate song!–
O bright, unwavering eye!–
O free wing soaring in limitless flight
Beyond the stretch of my aching sight!
How the cold earth darkens in sudden night!
How I shudder, and faint, and die!

SKY-LARK’S SONG

IV.

Fainter and fainter–’tis heard no more–
That plaintive strain from Earth’s lessening shore–
And I fling its weight from my fetterless wing,
Higher and higher in heaven to sing,
Afar from Earth’s faded shore!
I shall take my seat in the clouds,
I shall sit beside the Sun,–
I shall gaze with calm, unfaltering eye
On the face of the radiant one!
O glorious, kingly Sun!–
O brightly beautiful one!–
O Monarch, sitting serenely bright,
In thy quenchless glory on heaven’s height,
I am upward drawn to thee!–
And thy fiery spirit’s ardent flame
Is downward-drawn to me!
Sun, with gemmed and flashing banners,
List my rapturous hosannas,
As I circle nearer,–nearer,–
Where your rays burn brighter, clearer,–
Up, on wings of strong desire,
Higher still, and ever higher!

VIOLET’S SONG

V.

I droop by the cold, grey stone!–
I faint in the smitten day!–
I hear not the song of my own free bird
Whose joyous music my glad heart stirred
But yester-morn! I can see no more
The humming-bird’s wing as it flutters o’er
The fragrant clover-bloom!
The brook, with a far-off, sorrowful tone,
Seemeth in measureless grief to moan
As it hurrieth on its way–
The breath of my lost perfume
Floats on the wandering breeze,
Over the meadow’s perishing bloom,
Over the cold, blue seas!
I would not gather it back,
I would not fill anew
With love’s pure incense my broken urn,
For the lost can never more return
From the sky’s encompassing blue!

It is well!–I would not hang
A weight on his fetterless wing;
For was he not make for the sun-bright sky?–
To face the glories that burn on high?–
And I, to sit ‘mid Earth’s fading bloom,
And waste my life in the faint perfume
I fling to the thankless breeze?–
Let him cleave the azure infinite!–
Let him pour his soul out in song’s free might!–
Till the white-robed seraphs that dwell in light
Shall stoop to hear him sing!–
Be it mine to fade ere the day-beams die,
And alone in the sighing grass to lie,
With my dull face turned to the tearless sky,
A faded, forgotten thing!