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Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
SUMMARY
The poem, To A Skylark is a characteristic genius of William Wordsworth and it was written in 1825.
The poem To A Skylark, opens with a description of the peculiar characteristics of the bird. It soars high up in the sky and keeps singing there; but all the while its eye and heart are with its nest on the ground. It can drop down into that nest at will, by suddenly folding its wings and stopping its song. The character of the bird is distinguished from that of other birds. The bird soars beyond the last point of vision and yet the song reaches the bosom of the plain and thrills all hearers. The song is prompted by the bird’s love for its mate and its young ones which remain on the earth. Other birds sing only in the spring time but the skylark sings all the year round.
The Skylark does not care for any leafy bower to sing in; it covers itself in a flood of glorious sunlight in the upper air. Its song is urged by an impulse which is nobler than that of the nightingale; for it is the type of those wise men on earth who soar in high thoughts, but yet do not disregard the humblest lies of their earthly lives.