“Shelley”

A skylark singing to the sky

        With passion-beating heart and throat;

        Flinging so high each silver note

That never one can sink or die.

 

Would’st hear him? Come at primrose dawn

        Across the waking fields—and lo!

        See if thy loosened soul can go

Winging where those clear notes have gone.

 

O sweet voice, lost among the stars!

        How few steal to the fields apart

        To listen now. Oh, passionate heart—

Beating against the golden bars!

 

“Shelley” printed in The Seattle Times (October 9, 1901), in Higginson’s literary column “Clover Leaves.” Clipping courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham Washington.

 

 

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