So am I wrapped in quiet, still trancèd by their Word,
Until I reach the airs
Where a mortal skylark fares
But not in his first rapture shall match his song with theirs!
And now my feet are fallen, I am no more a bird,
Now for my little seeing the high gold noon is blurred;
For now where grey roads wind
I walk the low world mutely among my human kind.
THE SINGER OF HIGH STATE
On hills too harsh for firs to climb,
Where eagle dare not hatch her brood,
On the sheer peak of Solitude,
With anvils of black granite crude
He beats austerities of rhyme.
Such godlike stuff his spirit drinks
He made grand odes of tempest there.
The steel-winged eagle, if he dare
To cleave these tracts of frozen air,
Hearing such music, swoops and sinks.
Stark tumults, which no tense night awes,
Of godly love and titan hate
Down crags of song reverberate.
Held by the Singer of High State,
Battalions of the midnight pause.
On hills uplift from Space and Time,
On the sheer peak of Solitude,
With stars to give his furnace food,
On anvils of black granite crude
He beats austerities of rhyme.
BIRD, BIRD, BIRD
"Oiseau!" said the French boy, "oiseau!"
—but the word
Was absurd!
"Vogel!" said the German boy, but that
Fell flat.
"Bird!" said the English boy—the fresh word rolled
Pure gold.