Ans. Shelley’s “To a Skylark” is about a skylark, a miniscule bird that is famous for its song. To Shelley, the skylark is a ‘blithe Spirit’ which sings ‘full throat” in “Profuse strains of unmediated art’. Shelley presents the skylark as superior to every earthly object. It is ‘Like a star of Heaven’ and is superior to Earth and unseen ‘In the broad daylight’. The skylark with its melodious song is a mystery to the poet. The mystery that surrounds the bird makes Shelley puts forward the question: “What thou art we know not;/ What is most like thee?” The bird has been beautifully compared to a poet hidden in the light of thought, to a highborn maiden in a palace tower, to a glow-worm golden in a deli of dew, and to a rose embowered in its own green leaves. To Shelley, the skylark is an immortal being symbolizing illimitable beauty. Shelley idealizes the skylark in the following lines:
“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.”
Like Keats’s nightingale, Shelley’s skylark is free from ‘the weariness,the fever and the fret’ that plague human beings. The feelings of weariness never disturb the joy experienced by the skylark. The feelings of trouble and dissatisfaction do not touch the heart of the bird. Its joy is unflagging and undisturbed by troubles and anxieties.
