Thomas Hardy - Shelly's Skylark

Somewhere afield here something lies

In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust

That moved a poet to prophecies -

A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust

The dust of the lark that Shelley heard

And made immortal through times to be; -

Though it only lived like another bird

And knew not its immortality

Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell -

A little ball of feather and bone;

And how it perished, when piped farewell

And where it wastes, are alike unknown

Maybe it rests in the loam I view

Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green

Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue

Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene

Go find it, faeries, go and find

That tiny pinch of priceless dust

And bring a casket silver-lined

And framed of gold that gems encrust;

And we will lay it safe therein

And consecrate it to endless time;

For it inspired a bard to win

Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme