Its author claimed to have written it to contrast his view of poetic joy as communal with Coleridge's suggestion of its isolation in "Kublai Khan."
The addressee of this poem is "[l]ike a Poet hidden / In the light of thought . . . [and] "[l]ike a high-born maiden / In a palace tower." Its author claimed to have written it to contrast his view of poetic joy as communal with Coleridge's suggestion of its isolation in "Kublai Khan." In the last stanza the speaker implores the title figure to "[t]each me half the gladness / That thy brain must know," insisting that if "[s]uch harmonious madness / From my lips would flow / The world should listen then—as [he is] listening now" to its beautiful song. Originally published in a book with Prometheus Unbound and beginning by addressing the title creature as a "blithe spirit," FTP, name this poem by Percy Shelley about a songbird.
The addressee of this poem is "[l]ike a Poet hidden / In the light of thought . . .
“{To a Sky-Lark}”