Barbelith Underground > Comic Books > New X-Men #151 (Spoilers...WTF!?)

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem "To A Skylark"

Here's an analysis of the poem:

But Shelley is using the skylark both rhetorically and metaphorically. The Skylark transcends the ordinary; it is a nexus of idealism and Shelley's own radical thought. Its message has the power to raise the political consciousness and promote the change that the poet desires. The 'unbodied joy' of 'that silver sphere' contains centuries of philosophical thought. The influence of Plato et al (see 'The Greeks' above) had a large impact on Shelley and he believes 'the world should listen' with the intensity of the poet himself. The poet knows that freedom is not only physical and asks the skylark to tell him its "sweet thoughts," for never has he heard anything with "a flood of rapture so divine." The poet's dilemma is how to transpose the idyllic tones of the skylark's theory into a plethora of practice.

Whether Shelley looked into the sky and witnessed a form of UFO (see 'the silver sphere') or whether he constructed his vehicle of visionary thought is irrelevant to the nature of its contents. This ghostly object obscured from the eye "thou art unseen", also hides like "a rose embowered" or a "high-born maiden in a palace tower" its beauty and therefore its significance from the physical world below. The essence lies in the ability to rescue the meaning 'from one lonely cloud' and not 'look before and after and pine for what is not' but to encompass the skylark as it is 'scattering unbeholden its aerial hue", only then will the human spirit be free from the oppression it endures. Shelley knows 'teach us, sprite or bird' that the apparatus for this propulsion is somewhere between Plato's idealistic 'sprite' and Aristotle's material 'bird'. He also knows that with only 'half the gladness that thy brain must know' the seed of life itself could awake from its dormant state of inactivity; rejecting human suffering and promoting the outer beauty of collective harmony.

Still, the skylark flies "higher and higher" its song surpasses "all that ever was". What ? The poet asks, are "the fountains of thy happy strain?" Is it, as was the esoteric world of the Greek nobility, "love of thine own kind" or "ignorance or pain" or never knowing "love's sad satiety" ? The skylark must know "things more true and deep" than mortals could dream" or "how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ?" Here we contrast Plato's 'picture of joy' (6). This spiritual 'joy' is not contaminated by 'pain' and "langour" it is vibrant like "a star of heaven" not corrupted by guilt "pine for what is not" but runs pure like a "crystal stream". Shelley's skylark is a 'sphere' of joy, undulating hope and an overflowing propensity to instill belief. The skylark touches the essence of existence, it knows that "life" and all its "pleasure" and "beauty" is achievable. The poet also emphatically reminds us, however, that "The world should listen then, as I am listening now".......................

Whatever emotions "To A Skylark' invokes, Shelley was , as he himself believed , a philosopher first and a poet second. As we find in the words of Leonard Cohen "Like a bird on a wire like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to free". Shelley, tried in his way to be free. Free from the complacency of his contemporaries and free to express his observations through his poetical message. The bellowing tones of the 'skylark' echo this message resonantly almost two hundred years from the date it was written. It is a testimony to those of us who, through creative expression, try to carve our own niche of freedom. It is ironic then that in a world with a more open forum for political expression the 'dead poets society' of past generations is fast becoming one of the last vestiges of radical thought. Or maybe Shelley was just a 'happy genius who tried to live a sad life' and consoled himself in the beauty of nature as an end itself. The babbling brooks , the rustling trees, the smiling flowers thus devoid of radical significance. Innate objects flourishing in their natural habitat and fueling his poetic expression. A 'romantic' poet foremost , a dreamer , his head lost in a cloud of aesthetic surrealism.....