Explore "Shelley's Skylark" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(_The neighbourhood of Leghorn_: _March_, 1887)
SOMEWHERE afield here something lies / In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust / That moved a poet to prophecies- / A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust
The dust of the lark that Shelley heard, / And made immortal through times to be; - / Though it only lived like another bird, / And knew not its immortality.
Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell- / A little ball of feather and bone; / And how it perished, when piped farewell, / And where it wastes, are alike unknown.
Maybe it rests in the loam I view, / Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green, / Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue / Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.
Go find it, faeries, go and find / That tiny pinch of priceless dust, / And bring a casket silver-lined, / And framed of gold that gems encrust;
And we will lay it safe therein, / And consecrate it to endless time; / For it inspired a bard to win / Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme.