To a Skylark

by Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1820 · 2 min read · 105 lines

In short

“To a Skylark” by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a poem about a bird whose song seems to express a joy beyond human reach. The speaker greets the skylark as a spirit and follows its upward flight through sunset and purple evening, hearing it even when it disappears from sight. Seeking comparisons for its music, he imagines a hidden poet, a maiden singing in a tower, a glowworm, and a rose releasing its scent. He then asks what makes the bird so happy and contrasts its apparent freedom from sorrow with human longing, fear, and grief. At the end, admiration becomes a personal request: if the bird could teach him even half its gladness, his own poetry might make the world listen.

Ask about this poem

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert—That from heaven or near itPourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higherFrom 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 light’ningOf 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 evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of heaven,In the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight—

Keen as are the arrowsOf that silver sphereWhose intense lamp narrowsIn the white dawn clear,Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,As, when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe 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 notDrops so bright to see,As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:—

Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maidenIn a palace tower,Soothing her love-ladenSoul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aërial hueAmong the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower’dIn its own green leaves,By warm winds deflower’d,Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves

Sound of vernal showersOn the twinkling grass,Rain-awaken’d flowers—All that ever wasJoyous and clear and fresh—thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,Or triumphal chant,Match’d with thine would be allBut an empty vaunt—A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountainsOf 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 joyanceLanguor cannot be:Shadow of annoyanceNever came near thee:Thou lovest, but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,Thou of death must deemThings more true and deepThan 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 laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scornHate and pride and fear,If we were things bornNot to shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measuresOf delightful sound,Better than all treasuresThat in books are found,Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know;Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flow,The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

What it means, line by line

Lines 1 to 20: The speaker welcomes the skylark as something more than a bird: a joyful spirit pouring out effortless music. Its rising flight passes through sunset into purple evening until it becomes invisible. Images of fire, light, and bodiless joy make the bird seem less like a physical creature than a living expression of happiness.

Lines 21 to 35: Although the bird cannot be seen, its presence remains powerful. The speaker compares this effect to celestial light that can be felt even when its source is hard to see. Moonlight flooding the sky and melody falling like rain suggest how completely the song fills the surrounding world, while the bird itself remains mysterious.

Lines 36 to 60: Four comparisons explore beauty whose source is hidden: a poet stirring others’ feelings, a maiden singing privately, a glowworm concealed in grass, and a rose spreading perfume from its leaves. Each reaches beyond its hiding place through an unseen influence. Yet even fresh rain and flowers cannot equal the skylark’s music.

Lines 61 to 85: The speaker asks the bird to explain its happiness. Songs celebrating love, wine, marriage, or victory seem incomplete beside its voice. Questions about landscapes, love, and pain lead to imagined answers: perhaps the bird never tires of love or understands death more deeply than people do. These are the speaker’s guesses, not established facts.

Lines 86 to 105: Human beings long for what they lack, and even their laughter and music contain sorrow. The speaker doubts that removing hate, pride, and fear would bring people close to the bird’s joy. He values its gift above musical technique or books and ends by asking for enough gladness to make his own words equally compelling.

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Three questions to think about

How do the images of light help describe a bird the speaker can hear but cannot see?
What do the poet, maiden, glowworm, and rose share, and how does each comparison deepen the skylark’s mystery?
How does the final request change the poem’s focus from the bird’s happiness to the speaker’s hopes?

Free for 3 months

200,000+ classics. Every format, free to start.

eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and any book printed at cost, large print too.

Start freeNothing to pay today. USD 0.14 a day in the first year, then USD 0.27 a day.

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More by Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays

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