d with its song. Hark to the rain of melody
which it showers down upon us."

They listened enraptured, while the bird poured forth its flood of song.
When at length it ceased, and the two walked home in the deepening
twilight, the poet said:--

"We shall never know just what it was that sang so gloriously. But,
Mary, what do you think is most like it?"

"A poet," she answered. "There is nothing so like it as a poet wrapt in
his own sweet thoughts and singing till the world is made to sing with
him for very joy."

"And I," said he, "would compare it to a beautiful maiden singing for
love in some high palace tower, while all who hear her are bewitched by
the enchanting melody."

"And I," said she, "would compare it to a red, red rose sitting among
its green leaves and giving its sweet perfumes to the summer breezes."

"You speak well, Mary," said he; "but let me make one other comparison.
Is it not like a glowworm lying unseen amid the grass and flowers, and
all through the night casting a mellow radiance over them and filling
them with divine beauty?"

[Illustration: The Song of the Lark.]

"I do not like the comparison so well," was the answer. "Yet, after all,
there is nothing so like it as a poet--as yourself, for instance."

"No poet ever had its skill, because no poet was ever so free from
care," said Shelley, sadly. "It is like an unbodied joy floating
unrestrained whithersoever it will. Ah, Mary, if I had but half the
gladness that this bird or spirit must know, I would write such poetry
as would bewitch the world, and all men would listen, entranced, to my
song."

That night the poet could not sleep for thinking of the skylark's song.
The next day he sat alone in his study, putting into harmonious words
the thoughts that filled his mind. In the evening he read to Mary a new
poem, entitled "To a Skylark." It was full of the melody inspired by the
song of the bird. Its very meter suggested the joyous flight, the
fluttering pauses, the melodious swervings, the heavenward ascent of the
bird. No poem has ever been written that is fuller of beautiful images
and sweet and joyous harmonies.

Have you ever listened to the song of a bird and tried to attune your
own thoughts to its unrestrained and untaught melodies? There are no
true skylarks in America, and therefore you may never be able to repeat
the experience of the poet or fully to appreciate the "harmonious
madness" of his matchless poem; for no other