The Poem

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Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,
With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!
I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary;
Had I now the wings of a Faery,
Up to thee would I fly.
There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;
Lift me, guide me high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.
Joyous as morning,
Thou art laughing and scorning;
Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,
With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!
Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I, with my fate contented, will plod on,
And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.



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[Contents 1805]
[Main Contents]



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[Variant 1:]

1827
With all the heav'ns 1807

With all the heav'ns

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[Variant 2:]

date
But ... MS.

But ...

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[Variant 3:]

1815
the soul ... 1807

the soul ...

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[Variant 4:]

1832
Up with me, up with me, high and high, 1807

Up with me, up with me, high and high,

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[Variant 5:] This and the previous stanza were omitted in the edition of 1827, but restored in that of 1832.
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[Variant 6:]

1827
Joy and jollity be with us both!
Hearing thee, or else some other,
As merry a Brother,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, chearfully, till the day is done.



1807
What though my course be rugged and uneven,
To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,
Yet, hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.




1820

Joy and jollity be with us both!
Hearing thee, or else some other,
As merry a Brother,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, chearfully, till the day is done.

What though my course be rugged and uneven,
To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,
Yet, hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

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[Footnote A:] So it is printed in the Prose Works of Wordsworth (1876); but the date was 1805.—Ed.
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[Footnote B:] In a MS. copy this series is called "Poems composed 'for amusement' during a Tour, chiefly on foot."—Ed.
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Note: Compare this poem with Shelley's Skylark, and with Wordsworth's poem, on the same subject, written in the year 1825, and the last five stanzas of his Morning Exercise written in 1827; also with William Watson's First Skylark of Spring, 1895.—Ed.

[Contents 1805]
[Main Contents]

Fidelity