To the lark is one of the representative works of the English poet Shelley. Shelley and To the Lark vividly express the poet's yearning for light and pursuit of ideals through the image of the Lark. Lark is a kind of bird, which looks like a sparrow, but it is a little bigger. It lives in the wild grassland, nests on the ground and likes to fly high. It often rises from its "territory" and goes straight into the sky, whistling higher and higher.
Because larks have this unique habit, they are often chosen as the object of praise by poets. However, different poets write larks in different moods. For example, Wordsworth praised the lark for being loyal to the sky and home, while Shelley praised the lark for "going up and flying to the sky again and again", not only missing home, but also despising the ground. This lark image is not a pure lark in essence, but an ideal self-image of the poet, or an image carrier of the poet's ideal. Shelley repeatedly said in his poem that he was not as good as the lark, and I didn't know how to approach its joy. In fact, poets and larks are similar in many ways: they both pursue light, despise the ground and yearn for an ideal world. The only difference is that the poet painfully felt the huge gap between ideal and reality, which does not exist for larks. One side is jumping and singing, and the other side is sour and bitter. In fact, the two are opposite and connected. Of the two, soaring is the dominant aspect.
Judging from the tone of the whole poem, although Shelley felt the pain of distant ideals, he still surpassed sentimentality with a rising positive emotion. This poem is very skillful in artistic expression, and its rhythm and diction can be described as a perfect combination, which has always been praised.