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Alfred Austin - A Question Answered
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I saw the lark at break of day
 Rise from its dewy bed,
 And, winged with melody, away
 Circle to Heaven o`erhead.

 I watched it higher and higher soar,
 Still ceasing not to trill,
 When, though I could descry no more
 Its flight, I heard it still.

 But shortly quavered back its note,
 And, hovering into sight,
 I saw it, homeward sinking, float
 Over its nest of night.

 ``Tell me,`` I cried, ``glad songster, why
 You, privileged to wend
 Up to the blue and boundless sky,
 Where only wings ascend,

 ``Full into Heaven, to look and gaze
 Whither our thoughts aspire,
 And, unrebuked, terrestrial lays
 Blend with celestial choir,

 ``Why you, thus welcomed to the height
 Of minstrelsy and mirth,
 Pavilioned high from mortal sight,
 Come back again to Earth.``

 Then shook the lark again its wings,
 And, fluttering o`er its bed
 Deep—bosomed in the grassy floor,
 In rippling answer said:—

 ```Tis joy to mount, alone, aloft,
 Into the ether clear,
 And thence look down on garth and croft
 Of red—roofed hamlets here.

 ``To sing my song through endless space,
 Towering above, above,
 While mortals watch with upturned face
 Of longing and of love;

 ``Then, for a while, unseen to pass
 Through unsubstantial dome,
 But treble back to tangled grass—
 Not Heaven, withal my home.

 ``And tell me, when I skyward sing,
 Am I unlike to you,
 That on Imagination`s wing
 Strain sometimes out of view

 ``Into the radiant Realms untrod
 Song can alone descry,
 And whilom join, by grace of God,
 Angelic company

 ``Yet sink down from the firmament
 Back to life`s dearth and dole,
 Knowing full well that song was sent
 To comfort and console.``
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