And now she sang of the first delights of early love; of wanderings together on the sunny fresh hilltops, and of the sweet pictures and visions that arise out of the blue and misty distance.  The Child understood not rightly what he heard, and fain would he have understood, for he thought that even in such visions must be wondrous delight.  He gazed aloft after the unwearied bird, but she had disappeared in the morning mist.

Then the Child leaned his head on one shoulder to listen if he could no longer hear the little messenger of spring; and he could just catch the distant and quivering notes in which she sang of the fervent longing after the clear element of freedom, after the pure all-present light, and of the blessed foretaste of this desired enfranchisement, of this blending in the sea of celestial happiness.

Yet longer did he listen, for the tones of her song carried him there, where, as yet, his thoughts had never reached, and he felt himself happier in this short and imperfect flight than ever he had felt before.  But the lark now dropped suddenly to the earth, for her little body was too heavy for the ambient ether, and her wings were not large nor strong enough for the pure element.

Then the red corn-poppies laughed at the homely looking bird, and cried to one another and to the surrounding blades of corn in a shrill voice, “Now, indeed, you may see what comes of flying so high, and striving and straining after mere air; people only lose their time, and bring back nothing but weary wings and an empty stomach.  That vulgar-looking ill-dressed little creature would fain raise herself above us all, and has kept up a mighty noise.  And now there she lies on the ground and can hardly breathe, while we have stood still where we are sure of a good meal, and have stayed, like people of sense, where there is something substantial to be had; and in the time she has been fluttering and singing, we have grown a good deal taller and fatter.”

The other little redcaps chattered and screamed their assent so loud that the Child’s ears tingled, and he wished he could chastise them for their spiteful jeers; when a cyane said, in a soft voice, to her younger playmates, “Dear friends, be not led astray by outward show, nor by discourse which regards only outward show.  The lark is, indeed, weary, and the space into which she has soared is void; but the void is not what the lark sought, nor is the seeker returned empty home.  She strove after light and freedom, and light and freedom has she proclaimed.  She left the earth and its enjoyments, but she has drunk of the pure air of heaven, and has seen that it is not the earth, but the sun that is steadfast.  And if earth has called her back, it can keep nothing of her but what is its own.  Her sweet voice and her soaring wings belong to the sun, and will enter into light and freedom long after the foolish prater shall have sunk and been buried in the dark prison of the earth.”