Writing about poetry and song lyrics - Essay Example

who holds a special place among this group, and his work is marked by three main emotions- “politics, nature and love.”(Natasa Bakic Miric) He has often been called the most lyrical of English poets, and his work is marked by the reformist zeal which had encircled the globe, all of which fired his visionary and idealist leanings. In his works can be seen the natural movement from an idealism which creates the feeling of love for humanity, a belief in beauty and the consequent freedom of humanity.

The lyrical quality of the poem can be attributed to its arrangement which consists of 105 lines, arranged in 21 stanzas of five lines each. The first four lines are set in trochaic tri-meter while the fifth is in iambic hexameter. All the stanzas have the rhyme scheme ABABB. This poem came about, in the words of his wife Mary Shelley, when they “heard the caroling of the skylark, which inspired one of his most beautiful poems" (Shelley The Pursuit - Page 599) To the poet, the skylark is a metaphor for the ability to transcend the worldliness which surrounds us, and live with the idealism which all human beings dream of.

In the opening of the poem, Shelly addresses the skylark as a “Blithe spirit” instead of referring to it as a bird because the sweet strains of its singing seems to come from the Heavens. Shelly proves his point through the following phrase -"profuse strains of unpremeditated art." (Stanza 1- line 4) The poet compares the flight of the bird stating that it looked “like a cloud of fire” (Stanza 2 – line 3) as it soared higher and higher into the blue sky comparing its flight to something that is so joyful that even though it cannot be seen from afar, yet we are able to hear its “shrill delight.

’ (Stanza 4 – line 5) Shelly is one poet who is capable of creating vivid pictures in the minds eye of his audiences inducing a sense of oneness to the bird. He goes on to explain the bird’s descent from the clouds comparing it to