Shelley

Thy skylark emblems thee — her gushing song 
     Flooding the heavens with music, as away 
     She soars with glad heart in the dawning day,
Fanning the odorous air with pinion strong, 
      (Which to the chanting of the morning star 
     Keeps rhythmic beat, up-glancing and afar;)
Nor, to her wondrous melody belong
     Wilder or sweeter notes, than from thy lyre 
     Were flung like jets of incandescent fire,
To scathe, with its quick lightning, every wrong.

Prophet and poet thou! divinely gifted
     With hate of hollow forms and hoary lies, 
     And creeds that wall about old tyrannies ;
And, like the lark's, thy wondrous song was lifted 
     To greet the new day which thy prescient eye 
     Saw, ere it edged with light the orient sky,
Or sent its challenge to the Heavenly Hills, — 
     The day when Peace shall all the nations span, 
     And Love and Truth — twin angels — dwell with man.
What though, when battling with unnumbered ills,
     Some blows, struck blindly, missed their purposed aim, 
     Wounding sweet Truth ? Not thine alone the blame,
But theirs who made her courts the citadel 
     Of robber-lusts that preyed on human-kind, — 
     Corrupt, false priests, blind leaders of the blind,
Who paid to Heaven the sacrifice of Hell.
So shall men bless thee for that righteous daring 
     Which, trampling ancient Falsehood in the dust, 
     Asked not "How old?" but only, "Is it just?"
And spake good words of cheer for the despairing 
     Who crouched beneath the crosier or the rod, 
     And proved, by love of man, thy faith in God:
For though thy Reason, held in Doubt's constraint, 
     Stumbled and groped 'mid shadows of the Night, 
     Thy Love stood regnant on the hills of Light,
And made thee peer of Prophet and of Saint!