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| AS a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage | |
| Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells— | |
| That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; | |
| This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. | |
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| Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, | 5 |
| Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, | |
| Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells | |
| Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage. | |
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| Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest— | |
| Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest, | 10 |
| But his own nest, wild nest, no prison. | |
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| Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best, | |
| But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed | |
| For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen. | |
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| See Notes. |
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