Analysis of To A Skylark
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
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 lightning
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 overflowed.
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 aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
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 chaunt
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt--
A thing 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!
Scheme | AXXBB CACAA DEDEE XFEFF GHGHI IJIJX KLKLL EMEMK ECECC ENENN AOAXO PQPXQ RSRSS TATAX UVUVV GLXLA WXWXX CKCMM YHYIH PZPZZ GXXTX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (30%) |
Metre | 111110 11101 1110111 1111 0011111 101010 10111 101110 01111 010111010101 001010 10101 1011111 11101 1111111101 011010 10111 101110 0011 110111111101 111010 11101 101110 00111 011101111111 10101 11111 11111 11101 011101010101 111111 11111 111111 11111 1111010011100 101010 00111 1011 10111 110011011101 101110 001010 100110 101010 110111110010 101110 00111 1001 11001 0101001111101 1011 01111 1111 10111 11111111011 111010 101001 101010 11101 100101110101 11111 11111 11101 11111 110101110101 101 10101 111111 11101 010111111101 1101010 11101 1111110 111111 111111110011 11111 1101 11010 10111 11111111 10101 11111 11101 11101 111111010101 1101010 011111 10110 11111 1010111111101 11111 10101 11011 11101 111111110111 101110 10101 101110 10111 11110011101 11101 11111 1010010 11111 0111011111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 3,930 |
Words | 570 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 21 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 105 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 117 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 2:52 min read
- 120 Views
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"To A Skylark" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29293/to-a-skylark>.
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