she sustains,
     And the lyre of the light above,
     And the first rapt vision of Good,
     And the fresh young sense of Sweet: 
     That song the youth ever pursued
     In the track of her footing fleet. 
     For men to be profited much
     By her day upon earth did he sing: 
     Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch
     On the blossoms of tender Spring,
     Immortal:  and how in her soul
     She is with them, and tearless abides,
     Folding grain of a love for one goal
     In patience, past flowing of tides. 
     And if unto him she was tears,
     He wept not:  he wasted within: 
     Seeming sane in the song, to his peers,
     Only crazed where the cravings begin. 
     Our Lady of Gifts prized he less
     Than her issue in darkness:  the dim
     Lost Skiegencia’s caress
     Of our earth made it richest for him. 
     And for that was a curse on him raised,
     And he withered rathe, dry to his prime,
     Though the bounteous Giver be praised
     Through the island with rites of old time
     Exceedingly fervent, and reaped
     Veneration for teachings devout,
     Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped
     And the wine-presses ruddily spout,
     And the olive and apple are juice
     At a touch light as hers lost below. 
     Whatsoever to men is of use
     Sprang his worship of them who bestow,
     In a measure of songs unexcelled: 
     But that soul loving earth and the sun
     From her home of the shadows he held
     For his beacon where beam there is none: 
     And to join her, or have her brought back,
     In his frenzy the singer would call,
     Till he followed where never was track,
     On the path trod of all.

     The lark ascending

     He rises and begins to round,
     He drops the silver chain of sound,
     Of many links without a break,
     In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
     All intervolved and spreading wide,
     Like water-dimples down a tide
     Where ripple ripple overcurls
     And eddy into eddy whirls;
     A press of hurried notes that run
     So fleet they scarce are more than one,
     Yet changeingly the trills repeat
     And linger ringing while they fleet,
     Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear
     To her beyond the handmaid ear,
     Who sits beside our inner springs,
     Too often dry for this he brings,
     Which seems the very jet of earth
     At sight of sun, her music’s mirth,
     As up he wings the spiral stair,
     A song of light, and pierces air
     With fountain ardour, fountain play,
     To reach the shining tops of day,
     And drink in everything discerned
     An ecstasy to music turned,
     Impelled by what his happy bill
     Disperses; drinking,