As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage
Mans mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house,
dwells
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out lifes age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,
Both sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sometimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.
Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest
Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.
Mans spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,
But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.
