Write On: Shelley's Skylark .. Artwork by Jada Pelowski

Artwork by: Jada Pelowski

Roseau Community School

Art Teacher and Supervisor:

Mary Vatnsdal

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.

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928