Classic Poem

Bird of the free and fearless wing!
Up, up, and greet the sun's first ray,
Until the spacious welkin ring
With thy enlivening matin lay:
I love to track thy heavenward way
Till thou art lost to aching sight,
And hear thy numbers, blithe and gay,
Which set to music morning's light.

Songster of sky and cloud! to thee
Hath Heaven a joyous lot assign'd;
And thou, to hear those notes of glee,
Would'st seem therein thy bliss to find:
Thou art the first to leave behind
At day's return this lower earth,
And soaring as on wings of wind,
To spring where light and life have birth.

Bird of the sweet and taintless hour,
When dew-drops spangle o'er the lea,
Ere yet upon the bending flower
Has lit the busy humming-bee;—
Pure as all nature is to thee—
Thou, with an instinct half divine,
Wingest thy fearless flight so free
Up toward a yet more glorious shrine.

Bird of the morn! from thee might man,
Creation's lord, a lesson take:
If thou, whose instinct ill may scan
The glories that around thee break,
Thus bidd'st a sleeping world awake
To joy and praise;—oh! how much more
Should mind immortal, earth forsake,
And man look upward to adore!

Bird of the happy, heaven-ward song!
Could but the poet act thy part,
His soul, up-borne on wings as strong
As thought can give, from earth might start,
And with a far diviner art
Than ever genius can supply,
As thou the ear, might glad the heart,
And scatter music from the sky.