One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the[419] wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 5
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her[421] shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct[422] more divine; 10
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
Compare this with the earlier poem To a Skylark, written in 1805, and both poems with Shelley's still finer lyric to the same bird, written in 1820. See also the Morning Exercise (1828), stanzas v.-x. The eighth stanza of that poem was, from 1827 to 1842, the second stanza of this one. The poem was published in the Poetical Album, for 1829, edited by Alaric Watts, vol. ii. p. 30.—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[419] 1827.
... thy ...
Poetical Album, 1829.
[420] The following second stanza occurs only in the editions 1827-43—