To a Skylark / Shelley

"To a Skylark is an 1820 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

To a Skylark

Skylark at Kit Hill, 2012. Photo by Nilfanion. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

      Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
        Bird thou never wert —
      That from heaven or near it
        Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
 
      Higher still and higher
        From the earth thou springest,
      Like a cloud of fire;
        The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
 
      In the golden light'ning
        Of the sunken sun,
      O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
        Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
 
      The pale purple even
        Melts around thy flight;
      Like a star of heaven,
        In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight—
 
      Keen as are the arrows
        Of that silver sphere
      Whose intense lamp narrows
        In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
 
      All the earth and air
        With thy voice is loud,
      As when night is bare,
        From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.
 
      What thou art we know not;
        What is most like thee?
      From rainbow clouds there flow not
        Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:—
 
      Like a poet hidden
        In the light of thought,
      Singing hymns unbidden,
        Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
 
      Like a high-born maiden
        In a palace tower,
      Soothing her love-laden
        Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
 
      Like a glow-worm golden
        In a dell of dew,
      Scattering unbeholden
        Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:
 
      Like a rose embower'd
        In its own green leaves,
      By warm winds deflower'd,
        Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves.
 
      Sound of vernal showers
        On the twinkling grass,
      Rain-awaken'd flowers—
        All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh—thy music doth surpass.

To a Skylark Shelley

      Teach us, sprite or bird,
        What sweet thoughts are thine:
      I have never heard
        Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
 
      Chorus hymeneal,
        Or triumphal chant,
      Match'd with thine would be all
        But an empty vaunt—
A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
 
      What objects are the fountains
        Of thy happy strain?
      What fields, or waves, or mountains?
        What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
 
      With thy clear keen joyance
        Languor cannot be:
      Shadow of annoyance
        Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
 
      Waking or asleep,
        Thou of death must deem
      Things more true and deep
        Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
 
      We look before and after,
        And pine for what is not:
      Our sincerest laughter
        With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
 
      Yet, if we could scorn
        Hate and pride and fear,
      If we were things born
        Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
 
      Better than all measures
        Of delightful sound,
      Better than all treasures
        That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
 
      Teach me half the gladness
        That thy brain must know;
      Such harmonious madness
        From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.


— Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Background

MS page of "To a Skylark," 1820. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Shelley completed the poem "To a Skylark" in late June, 1820, and forwarded it to London to be included among the verse accompanying his book Prometheus Unbound.

It was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon.

Synopsis

A skylark is addressed by the poet, who calls it a "blithe Spirit" rather than a bird, because its song emanates from Heaven. Out of its full heart pours "profuse strains of unpremeditated art". The skylark ascends higher and higher in the blue sky, "like a cloud of fire", singing as it ascends. In the "golden lightning" of the sun, it floats and runs, like "an unbodied joy". As the skylark flies higher and higher, the poet loses sight of it, but is still able to hear its "shrill delight", which comes down as keenly as moonbeams in the "white dawn", which can be felt even when they are not seen. The earth and air ring with the skylark's voice, just as Heaven overflows with moonbeams when the moon shines out from behind "a lonely cloud".

The poet states that no one knows what the skylark is, for it is unique: even "rainbow clouds" do not rain as brightly as the shower of melody that pours from the skylark. The bird is "like a poet hidden / In the light of thought", able to make the world experience "sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not". It is like a lonely maiden in a palace tower, who uses her song to soothe her lovelorn soul. It is like a golden glow-worm, scattering light among the flowers and grass in which it is hidden. It is like a rose embowered in its own green leaves, whose scent is blown by the wind until the bees are faint with "too much sweet". The skylark's song surpasses "all that ever was, / Joyous and clear and fresh", whether the rain falling on the "twinkling grass" or the flowers the rain awakens.

Calling the skylark "Sprite or Bird", the poet implores it to reveal to him its "sweet thoughts", for he has never heard anyone or anything call up "a flood of rapture so divine". Compared to the skylark's, any music would seem lacking. What objects, the poet inquires, are "the fountains of thy happy strain"? Is it fields, waves, mountains, the sky, the plain, or "love of thine own kind" or "ignorance or pain"? Pain and languor, the poet says, "never came near" the skylark: it loves, but has never known "love's sad satiety". Of death, the skylark must know "things more true and deep" than mortals could dream. Otherwise, the poet asks, "How could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?"

For mortals, the experience of happiness is bound inextricably with the experience of sadness: dwelling upon memories and hopes for the future, mortal men "pine for what is not". The laughter of mankind is "fraught" with "some pain". Their "sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought". But, the poet states, even if men could "scorn / Hate and pride and fear", and were born without the capacity to weep, he still does not know how they could ever approximate the joy expressed by the skylark. Referring to the bird as a "scorner of the ground", he states that its music is better than all music and all poetry. He asks the bird to teach him "half the gladness / That thy brain must know", for then he would overflow with "harmonious madness", and his song would be so beautiful that the world would listen to him, even as he is now listening to the skylark.

Form

The work is written in a unique 5-line stanza , all 21 stanzas following the same pattern. The first 4 lines are in the meter of trochaic trimeter . The 5th lines are in iambic hexameter (also known as Alexandrines). The rhyme scheme of each stanza is A-B-A-B-B.

See also

• Other poems by Shelley

Recognition

In popular culture

The 1941 comic play Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward takes its title from the opening line: "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!"

References

• Hunter, Parks, C., Jr. "Undercurrents of Anacreontics in Shelley's 'To a Skylark' and 'The Cloud'. Studies in Philology, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Jul., 1968), pp. 677-692.
• Burt, Mary Elizabrth. Poems That Every Child Should Know. BiblioBazaar, 2009.
• Cervo, Nathan. "Hopkins' 'The Caged Skylark' and Shelley's 'To a Skylark.'" Explicator, 47.1(1988): 16-20.
• McClelland, Fleming. "Shelley's 'To a Sky-Lark.'" Explicator, 47.1 (1988): 15-16.
• Mahoney, John L. "Teaching 'To a Sky-Lark' in Relation to Shelley's Defense." Hall, Spencer (ed.). Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Poetry. New York: MLA, 1990. 83-85.
• Lewitt, Philip Jay. "Hidden Voices: Bird-Watching in Shelley, Keats, and Whitman." Kyushu American Literature, 28 (1987): 55-63.
• Ulmer, William A. "Some Hidden Want: Aspiration in 'To a Sky-Lark.'" Studies in Romanticism, 23.2 (1984): 245-58.
• Meihuizen, N. "Birds and Bird-Song in Wordsworth, Shelley and Yeats: The Study of a Relationship between Three Poems." English Studies in Africa, 31.1 (1988): 51-63.

External links

Audio / Video

• "To a Skylark" on YouTube

This poem is in the public domain