To A Skylark Comments

Oops! Only 6 comments so far for this great poem! ? ? ! Most amazing line Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

i hate no one i judge no one the only person i am mad at is myself for being not so aware of what is going on when my life was in such a frantic mess yikes long old story

The Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki quotes Shelley's Skylark in the first few pages of my favourite book, 'Kusamakura'. You could say Sōseki has made Shelley's poem an 'uta makura' (poetic pillow) .

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! Shelley's fervent, earnest prayer in the finishing lines was indeed answered by the Universal Soul. The world, like me, is listening enraptured to the harmonious madness in Shelley's lyrics, listening continuously. PBS LIVES!

Wonderful ride, to compare divinity, to a mere fowl, of song and beauty. Shelly displays high imagine skills in this work.

Shelley compares the skylark to various objects in order to make the readers understand as much as is possible the mysterious and beautiful bird, and its divine music. Some of the dazzlingly and exquistely beautiful objects to which it and its melodious voice are compared are: blithe spirit, a cloud of fire, an unbodied joy, a star of heaven, moon beam, the bright colours of the rainbow, an 'unseen' poet, a high-born maiden, a glow-worm, a rose, sound of vernal showers, crystal stream. It would be impossible to analyse all these images because of the restrictions on the word limit. However an analysis of one should serve the purpose. The following lines capture the essence of the bird and reveal the central message of the poem: 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. Shelley in his essay Defense of Poetry (written 1821 published 1840) remarks that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. That is, although the poets are never in the limelight they guide the destinies of a nation by voluntarily pronouncing profound truths which serve as moral guideposts to the common people. Similarly, the skylark also is rarely seen but its soulful melodious music serves to remind the people of the mysitcal beauties of Nature.

Hail to thee! I love this soaring unbodied joy!