Ans: In the celebrated poem “To a Skylark”, Shelley calls the skylark ‘the scorner of the ground’. He describes the singing bird as the scorner of the ground because it goes upward and sings there:
“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.” The skylark sings in the ‘golden lighting’ of the sunken sun and sings and soars throughout the whole sky. Its song is heard, but it remains invisible in the broad daylight. Shelley describes the bird through a series of images. It is compared to a poet hidden in the originality of thought, to an aristocratic lady sitting in the tower of a castle and singing. Then the skylark is compared to natural objects like the glow-worm which remains hidden in the grasses and to a rose concealed in a bower bit whose fragrance is enjoyed. Through all these unearthly and unfamiliar images, Shelley describes the bird. The skylark is a spirit — ‘blithe Spirit’; it is an ideal. It does not come down to the earth — it loves to soar in the sky. Hence, Shelley thinks that the skylark despises the ground.
