cr own readers

TO A SKYLARK. 255
13. Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine j
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
14. Choru s hym eneal,
Or triumphal chant,
~Iatched with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt-
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
* * * *
15. \Ye look before and after,
*
And pine for what is not j
Our sincerest laughter
\Vith some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
tho ught.
16. Y et if we could scorn
H ate, and prid e, and fear ;
If we were things horn
Not to shed a tea l',
I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.
1i. Better than all measures
Of delight and sound,
Better th an all treas ures
Th at in books are found ,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorne r of the ground.
18. Teach me half th e gladness
That thy bra in must know,
Such harmonious madness
F IV~ :ny lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
SHELLEY.