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 above thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!

Wordsworth

an you not almost hear this girl singing? The sun is just coming up. The lark is rising in the sky, singing! The girl has come out to work in the fields; a peasant girl. Barefooted, barehanded, she stands straight like a soldier of work with her head lifted to drink in the morning air as she sings.

One morning early I was driving through the country roads in the south of England when larks began to rise from the fields where the workmen were, just like this lark from the French field, and how they did sing! I stopped and listened, watching them go up higher and higher, their song growing fainter and fainter, and then they disappeared. Where did they go? Let us ask this French peasant girl. Do you think that she can tell us? If she cannot, who can?

Fig. 29. Song of the Lark. Breton. Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago

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