Poems (Sharpless)/"The Song of the Lark"

Poems
by Frances M. Sharpless
"The Song of the Lark"
4648351Poems — "The Song of the Lark"Frances M. Sharpless

"THE SONG OF THE LARK" A PICTURE BY BRETON
Thrilled with a nameless bliss, behold her stand,
The sturdy daughter of the stubborn soil;
Her ready sickle in her sunburnt hand,
Her skirt upkilted for her daily toil.

What aspiration wakes her sluggish brain,
And lights a sudden wonder in her eyes,
As all agape she listens to the rain
Of rapturous trilling from dawn's rosy skies?

She has no words for the strange, happy thought,
She only feels the dull, monotonous day
From that sweet bubbling melody hath caught
A glow of beauty on its vapid gray.

Strange visions, vague and lovely, lift her heart
Above life's penury and bitter need,
As beneath springtide suns, to being start
The tender leaflets of a buried seed.

Oh joy! that although earth is stern and dark
And closely round the heavy feet may cling,
The soul can spring beyond it, with yon lark,
And rising up toward heaven, blithely sing.