ON A FORSAKEN LARKS NEST.
139
Ah, what pæans of joy, what raptures no mortal can measure,
Sweet as honey that's sealed in the cells of the honey-comb,
Would have ascended on high in jets of mellifluous pleasure.
Would have dropped from the clouds to nest in its gold-curtained home.
Poor, pathetic brown eggs! Oh, pulses that never will quicken!
Music mute in the shell that hath been turned to a tomb!
Many a sweet human singer, chilled and adversity-stricken,
Withers benumbed in a world his joy might have helped to illume.
