Hail to thee, blithe spirit--
  Bird thou never wert--
  That from heaven or near it
  Pourest thy full heart
  In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

  Higher still and higher
  From the earth thou springest,
  Like a cloud of fire;
  The blue deep thou wingest,
  And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.

  In the golden lightning
  Of the sunken sun,
  O'er which clouds are brightening,
  Thou dost float and run,
  Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

  The pale purple even
  Melts around thy flight;
  Like a star of heaven,
  In the broad daylight
  Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

  Keen as are the arrows
  Of that silver sphere
  Whose intense lamp narrows
  In the white dawn clear,
  Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

  All the earth and air
  With thy voice is loud,
  As, when night is bare,
  From one lonely cloud
  The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

  What thou art we know not;
  What is most like thee?
  From rainbow-clouds there flow not
  Drops so bright to see
  As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:--

  Like a poet hidden
  In the light of thought;
  Singing hymns unbidden,
  Till the world is wrought
  To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

  Like a high-born maiden
  In a palace-tower,
  Soothing her love-laden
  Soul in secret hour
  With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

  Like a glow-worm golden
  In a dell of dew,
  Scattering unbeholden
  Its aërial hue
  Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

  Like a rose embowered
  In its own green leaves,
  By warm winds deflowered,
  Till the scent it gives
  Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves:

  Sound of vernal showers
  On the twinkling grass,
  Rain-awakened flowers -
  All that ever was
  Joyous and clear and fresh - thy music doth surpass.

  Teach us, sprite or bird,
  What sweet thoughts are thine:
  I have never heard
  Praise of love or wine
  That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

  Chorus hymeneal
  Or triumphal chaunt,
  Matched with thine, would be all
  But an empty vaunt--
  A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

  What objects are the fountains
  Of thy happy strain?
  What fields, or waves, or mountains?
  What shapes of sky or plain?
  What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

  With thy clear keen joyance
  Languor cannot be:
  Shadow of annoyance
  Never came near thee:
  Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

  Waking or asleep,
  Thou of death must deem
  Things more true and deep
  Than we mortals dream,
  Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

  We look before and after,
  And pine for what is not:
  Our sincerest laughter
  With some pain is fraught;
  Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

  Yet, if we could scorn
  Hate and pride and fear,
  If we were things born
  Not to shed a tear,
  I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

  Better than all measures
  Of delightful sound,
  Better than all treasures
  That in books are found,
  Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

  Teach me half the gladness
  That thy brain must know,
  Such harmonious madness
  From my lips would flow,
  The world should listen then, as I am listening now!