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 sunken 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.

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

How shall we create an atmosphere for the reading of these verses! How
can we catch the spirit of the creator of them! Shall we ever feel ready
to voice that first line? Do you know Jules Breton's picture _The Lark_?
Do you love it? Go, then, and stand before it, actually or in
imagination. Let something of the spirit which informs that lovely
child, lifting her eyes, her head in an attitude of listening rapture,
steal over you. I know her power. I have tested it. In reading the
"Skylark" with a class of boys and girls from twelve to fourteen years
old, I tried the experiment. I happened to have with me a beautiful copy
of Breton's picture. I took it to the class-room. I wrote on the
blackboard verses of the poem and hung the picture over them. The
_picture_ taught them to read the poem. The eyes of the girl became
their teacher. I tried the experiment, with a private pupil in my
studio, with a somewhat different result. I had told her to bring a copy
of Shelley's poems to her next lesson. "Do you know the ode _To a
Skylark_?" I asked. "Yes," she said. A copy of Breton's picture hung on
the wall. "Before you open your book look at the picture," I said. She
obeyed. Her expression, always radiant, deepened its radiance. "Do you
know what the girl is doing?" I asked. "Oh yes, she is listening to the
skylark." "How do you know?" "I have heard the skylark sing." "I never
have," I said. "Read the poem to me." Now when _I_ read the "Skylark," I