1. To a Skylark
By P. B. Shelley

2. Main Content Introduction: Bird Imagery in Romanticism Literature
Analysis
Summary

3. Romantic Poems of Bird Imagery
Birds as creatures close to spiritual perfection
Their gifts of flight and their song as metaphorical examinations of the poets’ dreams and desires
Fantastic and otherworldly presence
William Wordsworth’s poems such as To the Cuckoo and To a Skylark

4. Analysis Of the Poem
The poem can be tentatively divided into three parts, each having its own emphasis.
Part I. The first to the sixth stanza
Part II. The seventh to the twelfth stanza
Part III. The thirteenth to the twenty first stanza

5. Part I. The Skylark’s “profuse strain of unpremeditated art”
The skylark’s song which embodies “shrill delight” and “sweetest songs” are poetic inspirations of “unpremediated art”. What Shelley sees in the sky-lark are the instinct to create its art through happiness and joy. Its gift of flight enables it to soar nearest to Heaven, which for many Romantic poets is the source of all spiritually inspired art.

6. A voyage to the limits of sensory perception and knowledge (I)
The movement from dusk through to dawn maps a voyage to the limits of sensory perception and knowledge, where the listener desires to describe the skylark’s voice must ask “what thou art we know not; / What is most like thee?” It is also quite clear that Shelley is using the skylark as a metaphor for poetic inspiration. This is what his repetitive imagery about the power and uniqueness of the skylark is, for he is describing what he sees as the ultimate source of poetry; rather like the muses back in the classical era.

7. A voyage to the limits of sensory perception and knowledge (2)
Besides, Shelley’s evocation of the skylark’s enchanting voice celebrates the ingenious struggle of a poet to represent what is incomprehensible

8. Part II. An analogue between the unseen skylark and the invisible poet (1)
Shelley momentarily finds an analogue between the unseen skylark and the invisible poet concealed from the public gaze by the obscurity of what he or she contemplates. The poet and the skylark are united in their possession of a voice that can have an effect in the world even if their unsubstantial presence remains undetected

9. Part II. An analogue between the unseen skylark and the invisible poet (2)
Both a poet’s hymns unbidden and the skylark’s profuse strains of unpremeditated非预谋的 art are so beautiful that the world would listen to, as the speaker is listening to the skylark.

10. Part III. The separation of the poet from the uncomprehending world
Shelley‘s sky-lark is a poet which inspires both envy and awe in Shelley. Realizing he can never attain the same poetic perfection of the sky-lark, he entreats 恳求，乞求it to teach him its secrets. Shelley's interests seem to lie not so much in a desire to be spiritually pure, but to be the superior poet for it – “from my lips would flow/The world should listen then-as I am listening now.”

11. Summary (1)
Ode to the West Wind is Shelley’s first convincing attempt to articulate an aesthetic philosophy and his anxiety of the exhaustion of inspiration through metaphors of nature.
To a Skylark is the greatest natural metaphor for pure poetic expression, the “harmonious madness” of pure inspiration.

12. Summary (2)
The skylark’s song comes from a state of purified existence, a Wordsworthian notion of complete unity with Heaven through nature. It’s song is motivated by the joy of that uncomplicated purity of being, unmixed with any hint of melancholy or of the bittersweet, rains down upon the world, surpassing every other beauty.

13. Summary (3)
The bird is not a mortal bird at all, but a “Spirit,” a “sprite,” a “poet hidden / In the light of thought.”
In A Defense of Poetry, Shelley insists that the poet is the one with power to transform and reform men and women and their institutions. Shelley’s early portrayal of the poet in “Alastor” presents a man who refuses any compromise in the reconciliation of vision and reality. He is consumed by his quest. The poet of the Ode to the West Wind, through whose lips trumpets a prophecy of resurrection and regeneration, seeks to sing like a Skylark in To a Skylark.

14. Summary (4)
In Style: The first four lines are metered in trochaic 抑扬格诗句trimeter, the fifth in iambic hexameter (a line which can also be called an Alexandrine).
Trochee (the stressed-unstressed syllable pattern) meant in Greek “tripping” or “running” measure; it was also called “choree” (dancing foot). Such name tells of its lively nature, and is most suited for cheerful themes, and can be very emphatic不容置疑的; 明确强调的in expression.
The rhyme scheme of each stanza is extremely simple: ABABB.