A Word With a Skylark

If this be all, for which I’ve listened long, Oh, spirit of the dew! You did not sing to Shelley such a song As Shelley sang to you. Yet, with this ruined Old World for a nest, Worm-eaten through and through,⁠— This waste of grave-dust stamped with crown and crest,⁠— What better could you do? Ah me! but when the world and I were young, There was an apple-tree, There was a voice in the dawn that sung The buds awake—ah me! Oh, Lark of Europe, downward fluttering near, Like some spent leaf at best, You’d never sing again if you could hear My Bluebird of the West!