Journeys Through Bookland Volume X Part 37

Who is the mother of the buds? In what way are they "rocked to rest"?

How does the mother "dance about the sun"? Do you like the sound of the line, "I wield the flail of the las.h.i.+ng hail"? There are five "l's" in the line and they give it that liquid sound which you like. Did you ever see a farmer standing in the midst of a floor covered with stalks of grain, beating out the kernels with a flail? What does the word "under"

mean here? (An adverb, and means _down_ or _into subjection_.) What does "it" refer to, in the next to the last line?

_Second stanza._ Who is the pilot of the cloud? Where does he sit? What lures the pilot? Who are the "genii"? (A _genius_--plural, _genii_--is a good or evil spirit which was supposed by the ancients to guard a man and control his destinies. In a sense the spirit of the waters may be said to control the lightning.) Who move "in the depths of the purple sea"? (The word "dream" would be written "dreams" in prose. The two lines mean: "Wherever the lightning thinks the spirit he loves is to be found.") Who is dissolving in rains? Is there much lightning while the rain is falling or does it usually precede or follow the heaviest part of the shower?

_Third Stanza._ "Sanguine" means "blood red"; "rack" or "wrack" is broken or floating cloud. What is the "morning star"? What is meant by its "s.h.i.+ning dead"? What are the "burning plumes" and what the "meteor eyes" of the sunrise? What becomes of broken clouds when the sun strikes them? What is likened to an eagle that is "alit" on a crag? What is the "airy nest" of the cloud? What is a "brooding" dove? Is a dove more quiet than other birds? Did you ever see a cloud high in the sky at early dawn, at sunset, in the night? Does this stanza make you think of what you have seen, make you see it again more vividly?

_Fourth Stanza._ "Orbed" means "round" like the moon. The woof is the thread that in weaving is carried by the shuttle through the threads of the "warp"--here it means the "filling." The ancients considered Diana, G.o.ddess of the moon and of hunting, to be a beautiful girl, haughty and modest. In pictures she was clothed as a huntress, carried a bow and arrows and wore a crescent in her hair. Is the moon's light white? Is that phrase a beautiful one which speaks of the moon as "with white fire laden"? What is the position of the cloud in this stanza? Is it between the moon and the earth? Is the cloud the "fleece-like floor" of the sky? If so, when the cloud speaks of its "tent's thin roof," what is meant? (Perhaps when the moon looks down the cloud looks like a floor and when the earth looks up it sees the cloud like a tent.) Whose are the "unseen feet"? At what do the stars "peer"? What do they see first?

Why do they "turn and flee like a swarm of golden bees"? What do the stars see when the rent is widened? With what are the rivers, lakes and seas paved? How can they be paved with moon and stars? Did you ever see the moon and stars reflected in a lake, the former perhaps making a broad glittering pavement across the waters? To what does "these" in the last line refer? Why did not Sh.e.l.ley write "stars" instead of "these"?

Can you see the exquisite night pictures described in these lines?

_Fifth Stanza._ This stanza is characterized by force and intensity of action; the words and phrases are as apt and beautiful as can be written.

Have you not seen the west when the clouds appeared a fiery red around the setting sun? Have you not seen the moon surrounded by bright pearly clouds? When the winds blow strong and whirl the fleecy clouds through the sky do not the latter make the mountain tops dim and do not the stars seem to dash across the heavens in a maddening race? Ever changing, the clouds constantly rearrange themselves, sometimes bridging the entire heavens, resting at the horizon upon the mountains as upon columns.

What is the "triumphal arch"? What are the powers of the air? What is meant by saying they are "chained to the chair" of the cloud? Is the "triumphal arch" the "million-colored bow"? What is the "bow" that is said to be "million-colored"? What wove the soft colors of the million-colored bow? What is the "sphere fire"? What did it do? Whose soft colors did it weave? What was the earth doing while the colors were being woven? Why should the earth be laughing? Why is it spoken of as the moist earth?

_Sixth Stanza._ A cenotaph in an empty ornamental tomb. The body of the person to whom the monument has been erected is buried elsewhere.

In what way is a cloud the daughter of the earth and water? In what way is it the nurseling of the sky? How can a cloud pa.s.s through the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es? What are the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es? Is it true that a cloud cannot die? Is the poet true to nature and science when he says:

"For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the dome of the air"?

What is the "cenotaph" of the cloud? Out of what does the cloud rise again? What is there appropriate in saying that the cloud rises like a ghost? What is it the cloud builds up again?

Note the following particularly beautiful phrases:

"Leaves when laid In their noonday dreams."

"Great pines groan aghast."

"The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes."

"The crimson pall of eve."

"The woof of my tent's thin roof."

"My wind-built tent."

"The million-colored bow."

"Nurseling of the sky."

"With never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare."

Read aloud the entire lyric till its sweet music is yours. Note the smooth rhythm, the peculiar adaptation of sound to sense, the flowing cadences in the lines.

_Ode to a Skylark_

(Volume VII, page 275)

There are three cla.s.ses of lyrics that are to a greater or less degree in the nature of an address to some person, place or thing. The elegy is a lyric address praising the dead, the ode and the sonnet may praise living or dead. The elegy in its measures partakes of the solemnity of the grave, the ode is hampered by no such restrictions. Neither is the sonnet, although by its strict requirements of form it is set off in a cla.s.s by itself. In the ode the poet enjoys his greatest freedom, for he may use any meter, may write at any length and in any manner, grave, gay or grotesque. Accordingly the odes of our language are most spontaneous, musical, inspiring and beautiful.

_The Skylark_ is a perfect example of an ode at its best. It is full of life and joy. It sparkles in every line and vies in music with the song of the lark himself.

"Hail to thee, _blithe spirit_!-- Bird thou never wert."--

Those two lines are to be taken as the key note of the whole lyric. It is the spirit of free and perfect melody that Sh.e.l.ley is addressing, melody that comes from heaven or near it, that bubbles from the full heart, that is free from rules and conventions, unpremeditated, yet all art. It is "Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." "What thou art we know not," yet thou art like a poet hidden singing hymns unbidden; like a high-born maiden soothing her love-laden soul in secret; like a hidden glowworm scattering its hues unbeholden; like a rose embowered in its leaves making faint the thieving winds with its heavy scent. Its music surpa.s.ses the delicate sounds of vernal showers on the twinkling gra.s.s, the beauty of the rain-awakened flowers, and all that ever was clear and fresh and joyous. Such is the song.

"What are the thoughts that inspire such heavenly melody?" the poet cries. "Teach us, teach us thy sweet thoughts. I have never heard such a flood of rapture so divine. Matched with thy music the n.o.blest marriage hymn, the grandest Te Deum would be but an empty boast. From what fountains springs thy happy strain? Is it from fields, or waves or mountains, from strange shapes of the sky and plain? Is it from ignorance of pain, from love of thine own kind that the joyous music comes? Certainly thou lovest, but there can be no weariness in thy keen joy, no shadow of annoyance. How different we!

"We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

"Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near."

"To me, the poet, thy skill would be better than all the measures of delightful sound, than all the treasures found in books and if I could sing one half as well as thou, the world would listen to me entranced as I am listening to thee."

If the song of the lark is beautiful, the song of the poet is not surpa.s.sed. The riotous spirit of music sings in every line, beauty is seen in every stanza, is lavished upon every phrase, upon every melodious verse. The prodigality of beautiful phrases is marvelous. The phrases descriptive of the bird alone are strikingly apt and numerous:

"Blithe spirit"; "bird thou never wert"; "like a cloud of fire"; "like an unbodied joy"; "like a star of heaven"; "like a poet hidden in the light of thought"; "like a highborn maiden in a palace tower"; "like a glowworm golden"; "like a rose embowered"; "sprite and bird"; "thou scorner of the ground."

To characterize the song properly, the poet finds it necessary to use these phrases: "Profuse strains of unpremeditated art"; "shrill delight"; "keen as are the arrows of that silver sphere"; "all the earth and air with thy voice is loud"; "a rain of melody"; surpa.s.sing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow in such a crystal stream."

Besides the ardent appreciation for the beautiful song, the lyric contains one sad truth exquisitely expressed:

"We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

And finally, there is the consummate personal appeal of the poet, which, if we may judge by the matchless lyric, was answered by the same spirit that inspired the graceful scorner of the ground:

"Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now!"

Compare the following lyric on the same subject by James Hogg:

Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and c.u.mberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!

Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place-- O, to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.

Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and mountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing away!

Then when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather blooms Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!

Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place O, to abide in the desert with thee.

Various interpretations and helpful comments of other kinds may be found on the following pages:

Volume I, page 95. _The Rock-a-By Lady._ Volume I, page 204. _Old Gaelic Lullaby._ Volume I, page 350. _Keepsake Mill._ Volume I, page 406. _The Fairies._ Volume II, page 482. _In Time's Swing._ Volume IV, page 86. _The Village Blacksmith._ Volume V, page 335. _How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix._ Volume V, page 396. _The American Flag._ Volume VII, page 345. _The Reaper's Dream._ Volume VIII, page 60. _America._