Shelley's Skylark

(The neighbourhood of Leghorn: March, 1887)     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.