Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 1K views

    To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley - Poetry Foundation

    Uploaded by

    chetan jewaria
    This poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley celebrates a skylark singing its song as it flies higher and higher into the sky. In three short sentences, the poem describes the skylark pouring its full heart into its song without premeditation as it springs up from the earth like a cloud of fire and continues singing and soaring higher. Its pale purple evening flight and shrill delight are compared to the moon's beams overflowing heaven.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley - Poetry Foundation

    Uploaded by

    chetan jewaria
    1K views4 pages
    This poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley celebrates a skylark singing its song as it flies higher and higher into the sky. In three short sentences, the poem describes the skylark pouring its full heart into its song without premeditation as it springs up from the earth like a cloud of fire and continues singing and soaring higher. Its pale purple evening flight and shrill delight are compared to the moon's beams overflowing heaven.

    Original Title

    To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley _ Poetry Foundation

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley celebrates a skylark singing its song as it flies higher and higher into the sky. In three short sentences, the poem describes the skylark pouring its full heart into its song without premeditation as it springs up from the earth like a cloud of fire and continues singing and soaring higher. Its pale purple evening flight and shrill delight are compared to the moon's beams overflowing heaven.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    1K views4 pages

    To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley - Poetry Foundation

    Uploaded by

    chetan jewaria
    This poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley celebrates a skylark singing its song as it flies higher and higher into the sky. In three short sentences, the poem describes the skylark pouring its full heart into its song without premeditation as it springs up from the earth like a cloud of fire and continues singing and soaring higher. Its pale purple evening flight and shrill delight are compared to the moon's beams overflowing heaven.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 4

    To a Skylark

    BY PER CY BY SS H E S H E L L E Y

    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 day-light

    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 overflow'd.

    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 aëreal hue

    Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

    Like a rose embower'd

    In its own green leaves,

    By warm winds deflower'd,

    Till the scent it gives

    Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

    Sound of vernal showers

    On the twinkling grass,

    Rain-awaken'd 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 chant,

    Match'd 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.

    C O N TA C T U S

    N E W S L E TTE RS

    P RE S S

    P R IVAC Y P OL IC Y

    P OL IC IE S

    T E R MS OF U S E

    P OE T RY MOBIL E A P P

    61 West Superior Street,

    Chicago, IL 60654

    Hours:

    Monday-Friday 11am - 4pm

    © 2022 Poetry Foundation

    You might also like