Poem of the Day: Percy Bysshe Shelley

To a Skylark

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! 

     Bird thou never wert, 

That from Heaven, or near it, 

     Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

     From the earth thou springest 

Like a cloud of fire; 

     The deep blue thou wingest, 

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 

     Of the setting sun, 

O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 

     Thou dost float and run; 

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale purple even 

     Melts around thy flight; 

Like a star of Heaven, 

     In the broad daylight 

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 

Keen as are the arrows 

     Of that silver sphere, 

Whose intense lamp narrows 

     In the white dawn clear 

Until we hardly see -- we feel that it s there. 

All the earth and air 

     With thy voice is loud, 

As, when night is bare, 

     From one lonely cloud 

The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed. 

What thou art we know not; 

     What is most like thee? 

From rainbow clouds there flow not 

     Drops so bright to see 

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

Like a Poet hidden 

     In the light of thought, 

Singing hymns unbidden, 

     Till the world is wrought 

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 

Like a high born maiden 

     In a palace tower, 

Soothing her love-laden

     Soul in secret hour 

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 

Like a glowworm golden 

     In a dell of dew, 

Scattering unbeholden 

     Its aërial hue 

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view!

Like a rose embowered 

     In its own green leaves, 

By warm winds deflowered, 

     Till the scent it gives 

Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingéd thieves:

Sound of vernal showers 

   On the twinkling grass, 

Rain-awakened flowers, 

     All that ever was 

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass: 

Teach us, Sprite or Bird, 

     What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard 

     Praise of love or wine 

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal, 

     Or triumphal chant, 

Matched with thine would be all

     But an empty vaunt, 

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 

     Of thy happy strain? 

What fields, or waves, or mountains? 

     What shapes of sky or plain? 

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 

With thy clear keen joyance 

     Languor cannot be: 

Shadow of annoyance 

     Never came near thee: 

Thou lovest -- but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, 

     Thou of death must deem 

Things more true and deep 

     Than we mortals deamm, 

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

     And pine for what is not: 

Our sincerest laughter 

     With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 

     Hate, and pride, and fear; 

If we were things born

     Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

Better than all measures 

     Of delightful sound, 

Better than all treasures 

     That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness 

     That thy brain must know, 

Such harmonious madness 

     From my lips would flow 

The world should listen then -- as I am listening now.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

 
I don't know whether to prefer the Shelley version or the Johnny Mercer-Hoagy Carmichael version. But then I don't really have to choose, do I?