The Lark's Nest

I never hear a lark its matins sing,
But I bethink me of that orphan nest,
Where once I saw a little callow thing,
Erect, with death-cold wings, above the rest,
As tho' he lived and pleaded. Light and shade
Swept in and out of his poor open maw,
While underneath his silent feet I saw
A short-breathed group of helpless orphans laid.
The life was ebbing from each infant throat,
Too young as yet for music's earliest note;
High up a living lark sang loud and free —
Keen was the contrast — it was sad to mark
Those eyes, heaven-charter'd, now earth-bound and dark:
Beneath a morning sky they could not see.