Ans. In Shelley’s celebrated poem “To a Skylark” we get a pessimistic picture of human life. The joyful and happy life of the skylark is contrasted with miserable human existence on earth. Man is always unhappy because he is never satisfied with his lot. Man loves but his love brings bitterness when it is satisfied. Again, man is afraid of death. He has no clear idea of what is there after death. The bird has the knowledge of the mystery of life and death. Whereas the bird’s life is marked by “clear keen joyance”, the life of man is characterized by sorrow and misery. The miserable lot of human beings is given poignant expression in the following lines:
“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.”
Neither the past nor the future holds out any charm to human beings. The remembrance of the past with its woeful looking makes human beings sorrowful. The future also does not hold out any hope of cheerfulness. Even in the sincerest laughter of man, there is the hidden feeling of pain. The sweetest songs are those which give utterance to saddest thought. Shelley gives a very pessimistic picture of human life.
