Metaphors in "To a Skylark"

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"To a Skylark" is a lyrical poem written by one of the best known Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).  In this poem, the poet has elevated beauty and sweetness of a skylark and the song it sings. To describe its virtues, the skylark is compared with various beautiful things of the world. Metaphoric language has been used in the poem as a means of such comparisons. The poem thus is filled with metaphors to describe beauty of the skylark and sweetness of its songs and such metaphors have made the bird and the song something more than what they really are.

The term 'metaphor' for this essay means all the devices used to compare a thing with another, including similes. Among various forms of metaphoric devices, the mostly used one is simile here. Abrams defines, "In a simile a comparison between two distinctly different things is indicated by the word "like" or "as"" (63). The poem includes numerous similes as it compares the skylark and its songs with other beings and things that are praised for beauty and sweetness.

The very first stanza of the poem announces, "Bird thou never wert." Thus, it is clear from the beginning that the bird will be compared with various other things throughout the poem (in order to prove that it is not only a bird). "To Shelley (the speaker), the skylark is not even a bird; it is a series of metaphors (similes). Perhaps Shelley recognizes that we never really know nature for what it is; we see it from a human perspective (and we often personify it)" (Wohlstadter). Consequently, the bird is being compared in the second stanza: "Like a cloud of fire." With this simile, the poet perhaps refers to heightened status of the bird (like cloud) with glow and energy (like fire). In such way, the single simile has compared the bird with two different things.

The third stanza too has another simile "Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." This suggests that movement of skylark is transcendental and immediate at the same time. It is transcendental because it is like an "unbodied" joy that transcends this physical world. But, it also feels so immediate that the bird has just begun flying ("Whose race is just begun"). The poet has already said that this movement is in the golden lightening of the sunken sun. This colour description of "golden lightening" has further contributed to heightened value of the skylark.

In both stanzas discussed above, the "cloud" is a synecdoche, another form of metaphoric device, because it represents the sky and other planetary objects as a whole that are considered heavenly, divine and transcendental. "In synecdoche, a part of something is used to signify the whole, or (more rarely) the whole is signify a part" (Abrams 65). Cloud is a part of the sky, and here it is used as a synecdoche to represent the whole of the sky which it is a part of. Consequently, the comparison has established the skylark itself as heavenly, divine and transcendental.

As the second and third stanzas, the fourth and fifth stanzas too have used similes to describe the skylark. In the fourth stanza, the skylark is compared against "A star of Heaven / In the broad daylight." The skylark singing is so powerful that it makes everything spellbound. Like a star of the sky in day time, the skylark is influential even if it is not seen or heard at the moment. Similarly, the fifth stanza compares it with rays of light from the moon: "Keen as are the arrows / Of that silver sphere." One can know that moonbeams are there even if s/he has not seen them. Similarly, the skylark's songs too have influences and impressions to human minds even if they are not seen. The sixth stanza continues with the same moonbeam simile.

In the seventh stanza, the poet imagines a situation when he overhears numbers of skylarks singing. He compares this situation with a rain using a very beautiful and strong simile: "As from thy presence showers a rain of melody." With this simile, the poet has expressed that rain of melody from the skylark is stronger and more influential than rain from the cloud: "From rainbow clouds there flow not / Drops so bright to see." The seventh stanza itself positions the question "What is most like thee?" and this question has led the poem to introduce some more metaphors.

In an attempt to answer that question, the subsequent four stanzas begin with the same word "like". Thus, it is very clear that the poet has introduced four distinct similes from eights to eleventh stanzas to further describe the skylark. The similes in these four stanzas are "Like a poet hidden / In the light of thought," "Like a high-born maiden / In a palace tower," "Like a glowworm golden / In a dell of dew" and "Like a rose embowered / In its own green leaves". The eighth stanza says the skylark is like a poet who is deep in his thought and who can make the world notice hopes and fears otherwise unnoticed by people.  The ninth stanza compares the bird with a lady who is making her beloved calm and lovely with her music in secret. In the tenth stanza, the bird is like a glowworm in a small valley which is scattering light there but without being seen. Finally in the eleventh stanza, the skylark is like a fresh rose flower with green leaves that smells so good to everyone. Thus the skylark's song can surpass every joy and freshness possible as concluded in the twelfth stanza.

The thirteenth stanza uses the metaphor of "sprite" to refer to the skylark. A metaphor strongly associates something with qualities of something else without using any comparing word. With the metaphor of "sprite", the poet has given the bird a magical power that can provide with "a flood of rapture so divine." Thus, here, the "flood" too becomes a metaphor for songs of the skylark that is delightful and divine. The rest of the poem deals with the poet's curiosity on what made the skylark so delightful, divine, beautiful and sweet; and they are directly evoked with uses of metaphors in previous stanzas.

The poem concludes as it establishes the skylark's song as a metaphor for the source of the whole of poetry and music that the poet has created so far. He wishes that the skylark would teach him a half of his songs so that he can produce more and better poems to make people listen as he is now listening to the skylark.

The poem's beginning hinted that many metaphors will be used in the poem to prove that the skylark is not just a bird; and the poem concludes as it proves the statement. Metaphoric devices have made the poem flow with its message and meaning. In absence of such metaphors, the poem would have died. Thus, metaphors are what make this poem alive.

Works Cited

Abrams, MH. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 3^rd ed. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1978.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "To a Skylark". TheNorton Anthology of Poetry. 4^th ed. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. New York: Norton, 1996. 805-807.

Wohlstadter, Jason. "To a Skylark". Modesto Junior College. 29 Apr. 2013. <http://wohlstadterj.faculty.mjc.edu/E%20138%20Shelley%20Ode%20to%20a%20Skylark.pdf>