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PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
It were “a curious piece of work enough,” to run a parallel between the Skylark of Shelley and that of Wordsworth, and thus illustrate mental processes so similar in dissimilitude. The mood of mind, the ideas, are not unlike in the two. Hear Wordsworth.
| “Up with me, up with me, into the clouds,” etc. |
| “Lift me, guide me, till I find |
| The spot which seems so to thy mind, |
| I have walked through wildernesses dreary, |
| And to-day my heart is weary, |
| Had I now the wings of a Fairy |
| Up to thee would I fly; |
| There is madness about thee, and joy divine |
| In that song of thine: |
| Joyous as morning, thou art laughing and scorning; |
| And though little troubled with sloth, |
| Drunken Lark, thou would’st be loth |
| To be such a traveller as I! |
| Happy, happy liver, |
| With a soul as strong as a mountain river, |
| Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, |
| Joy and jollity be with us both.” |
Hear Shelley.
| 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, |
