AS a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells -- That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's 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. Man's 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 bones risen. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A VALENTINE TO SHERWOOD ANDERSON by GERTRUDE STEIN HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 1. VIETNAM by KAREN SWENSON EPITAPH ON THOMAS CLERE, SURREY'S FAITHFUL FRIEND AND FOLLOWER by HENRY HOWARD MY MOTHER by FLORENCE R. ANDREWS LARABELLE; CANTO FOURTH by LEVI BISHOP UPON THE HILL BEFORE CENTREVILLE by GEORGE HENRY BOKER SONGS OF THE SEA CHILDREN: 60 by BLISS CARMAN |