TO A SKYLARK

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise who soar but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

"Summer is coming, summer is coming,

I know it, I know it, I know it.

Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,"
Yes, my wild little Poet.

2

Sing the new year in under the blue.

Last year you sang it as gladly.

"New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new
That you should carol so madly?

3

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again"

Never a prophet so crazy!

And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,

See, there is hardly a daisy.

4

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!"
O warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming my dear,

And all the winters are hidden.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical and Historical: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892, was poet laureate of England, succeeding Wordsworth. He was born in Lincolnshire and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. He lived a quiet life and devoted himself to poetry, in which he excelled in beauty of expression and choice of words. One of his longer poems is "The Idylls of the King."

The song-thrush or throstle is found in most parts of England. Its song is rich, mellow and sustained. The throstle begins to sing in the early spring and continues until late in autumn. This is the bird of which Robert Browning says,

"He sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!"'

Notes and Questions.

Read the lines in the first stanza which represent the song of the throstle.

Read the line which gives Tennyson's answer to the bird.

Why does he call the bird a poet? What words in the second stanza represent the bird's song? Find the bird's song in the third stanza. In the fourth.

Biographical: William Wordsworth, 1770-1850, was born in the beautiful Cumberland Highlands of northern England, which furnished the inspiration for most of his poetry and where his life was largely lived. His father and mother died when he was a mere boy. After a course at Cambridge, where he and Coleridge became friends, he located in the northern part of England, known as the Lake Region. His poems deal with humble life and are expressed in simple yet beautiful language.

Across the lonely beach we flit

One little sandpiper and I;

And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry,
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I.

2

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud, black and swift, across the sky;