“Lo! hear the gentle lark!”—SHAKESPEARE.
Once on a time—no matter where—
A lark took such a fancy to the air,
That though he often gazed beneath,
Watching the breezy down, or heath,
Yet very, very seldom he was found
To perch upon the ground.
Hour after hour,
Through ev’ry change of weather hard or soft,
Through sun and shade, and wind and show’r,
Still fluttering aloft;
In silence now, and now in song,
Up, up in cloudland all day long,
On weary wing, yet with unceasing flight,
Like to those Birds of Paradise, so rare,
Fabled to live, and love, and feed in air,
But never to alight.
It caused, of course, much speculation
Among the feather’d generation;
Who tried to guess the riddle that was in it—
The robin puzzled at it, and the wren,
The swallows, cock and hen,
The wagtail, and the linnet,
The yellowhammer, and the finch as well—
The sparrow ask’d the tit, who couldn’t tell,
The jay, the pie—but all were in the dark,
Till out of patience with the common doubt,
The Rook at last resolved to worm it out,
And thus accosted the mysterious Lark:—
“Friend, prithee, tell me why
You keep this constant hovering so high,
As if you had some castle in the air,
That you are always poising there,
A speck against the sky—
Neglectful of each old familiar feature
Of Earth that nursed you in your callow state—
You think you’re only soaring at heaven’s gate,
Whereas you’re flying in the face of Nature!”
“Friend,” said the Lark, with melancholy tone,
And in each little eye a dewdrop shone,
“No creature of my kind was ever fonder
Of that dear spot of earth
Which gave it birth—
And I was nestled in the furrow yonder!
Sweet is the twinkle of the dewy heath,
And sweet that thymy down I watch beneath,
Saluted often with a living sonnet:
But Men, vile Men, have spread so thick a scurf
Of dirt and infamy about the Turf,
I do not like to settle on it!”
MORAL.
Alas! how Nobles of another race
Appointed to the bright and lofty way
Too willingly descend to haunt a place
Polluted by the deeds of Birds of Prey!