To the Skylark

In the poem’s first stanza, the speaker sets up the idea of freedom and domesticity as contrasts. In their first rhetorical question, they ask the skylark if it loathes the earth, even as it flies. This dichotomy is both literal and metaphorical. Skylarks do fly, and they are known for building nests upon the ground instead of in trees like some other bird species. On a metaphorical level, the skylark’s flight represents freedom and independence, while its nest on the ground represents domesticity, stability, and comfort: “Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will / Those quivering wings composed, that music still!” (Lines 5-6). The speaker presents the sky/earth and freedom/domesticity duality as a one-or-the-other preference: they suggest that the skylark must favor the sky or the earth, or freedom or domesticity.

The speaker then shifts their line of reasoning. In the second stanza, they note how even when at “the last point of vision” (Line 7) in the sky, the skylark’s “strain” (Line 8), or song, is “love-prompted” (Line 8) and forms “a never-failing bond” (Line 9) between the skylark and its loved ones on the earth.