"To a Skylark" describes the sight and sound of a bird singing. From that immediate description, the narrator moves on to reflecting on the role of nature in humanity's life, and how it can change people. The strong points of the poem are the sustained mood, the elevated tone, and some of line sequences, which are quite nice. Consider this sequence, for example:
"We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:"
This sums up humanity's relationship to time and inability to live in the moment.
As for weaknesses, some of the language is a stretch ("Bird thou never wert"!), and it seems to reach too far beyond the moment. (It's just a bird, after all.)
No comments:
Post a Comment