THE ROYAL GEORGE

His sword was in its sheath,

His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down With twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up,

Once dreaded by our foes! And mingle with our cup

The tear that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound

And she may float again

Full charged with England's thunder,

And plough the distant main.

But Kempenfelt is gone,

His victories are o'er;

And he and his eight hundred

Shall plough the wave no more.

271

WILLIAM COWPER.

TO A SKYLARK

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

TO A SKYLARK

Keen as are the arrows

Of the silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

273

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

274

TO A SKYLARK

Like a glow-worm golden,

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the

view :

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy wingèd thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I had never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.