To A Sky-Lark
The persona extols the virtues of the skylark, a bird that soars and sings high in the air. It flies too high to see, but it can be heard, making it like a spirit, or a maiden in a tower, or a glow-worm hidden in the grass, or the scent of a rose. The skylark’s song is better than the sound of rain and better than human poetry. What is the subject of the bird’s song, so free of the pains of love? Perhaps it sings because it knows that the alternative is death. The bird does not have the same longings and cares that interfere with human happiness. Yet, it is these things that help us appreciate the pure beauty of the birdsong; perhaps the skylark’s song could become the persona’s ...
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middle of the poem in metaphors, comparing the skylark to other living objects in nature (poets, a maiden, worms, and roses), which express love, pain, and sorrow. None of them, however, has the expressive ability of the singing bird. The poet hopes to learn about the realm of spirit from the bird, plainly asking to teach him how it manages to continue on with its “rapture so divine” without ever wavering in pain or sorrow. Even the happiest of human songs, like a wedding song (“Chorus hymeneal”), does not compare to the song of a skylark.
The song of the skylark, rather than the skylark itself, is what holds all the power. It is the song that can have the “light of thought” of “the poet,” the “soothing love” of the maiden, invisible existence as the “glow-worm golden,” and the aura of “a rose.” It is this power to awaken so many different parts in nature, and make them aware to the human mind, that Shelley wants to “be taught.”
Eventually, the speaker seems to come to terms ...
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To A Sky-Lark. (2011, April 27). Retrieved April 26, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/To-A-Sky-Lark/98542
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"To A Sky-Lark." Essayworld.com. April 27, 2011. Accessed April 26, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/To-A-Sky-Lark/98542.
"To A Sky-Lark." Essayworld.com. April 27, 2011. Accessed April 26, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/To-A-Sky-Lark/98542.
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