(d) Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match’d with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. In these lines Shelley gives vent to his thought produced by the melodious song of the Skylark and also, at the same time, extols the bird’s song through a matchless comparison.

The Skylark for Shelley is not an earthly bird, but a spirit of joy and rapture. The poet listens to its song with rapt attention and say that he has never heard such a flood of “rapture divine”. Its song seems to be an endless outpouring of delight and the bird itself is an “unbodied joy”, a symbol of ideal beauty and pure joy. Shelley’s own search for ideal love and happiness is perfectly fulfilled by this bird of his poetic creation. Hence the wedding songs or chants of victory which could very well be expected to be full of unalloyed joy and delight are hollow and meaningless when compared with the song of the skylark. The poet says that even the sweetest earthly music is but an empty “vaunt” when compared to the joyous rapture of the Skylark. Earthly music, however sweet, is imperfect because there is some hidden want in it, while the Skylark’s song is perfect in its joyousness and leaves us completely satisfied.