Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

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                              To a Skylark.

 

5             HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
             Bird thou never wert,
          That from heaven, or near it,
             Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
10    

          Higher still and higher
             From the earth thou springest
          Like a cloud of fire;
             The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
15    

          [202] In the golden lightning
             Of the sunken sun,
          O'er which clouds are brightning,
             Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
20    

          The pale purple even
             Melts around thy flight;
          Like a star of heaven,
             In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
25    

          Keen as are the arrows
             Of that silver sphere,
          Whose intense lamp narrows
             In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
30    

          All the earth and air
             With thy voice is loud,
          As, when night is bare,
             From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
35    

          [203] What thou art we know not;
             What is most like thee?
          From rainbow clouds there flow not
             Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
40    

          Like a poet hidden
             In the light of thought,
          Singing hymns unbidden,
             Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
45    

          Like a high-born maiden
             In a palace-tower,
          Soothing her love-laden
             Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
50    

          Like a glow-worm golden
             In a dell of dew,
          Scattering unbeholden
             Its aereal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
55    

          [204] Like a rose embowered
             In its own green leaves,
          By warm winds deflowered,
             Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
60    

          Sound of vernal showers
             On the twinkling grass,
          Rain-awakened flowers,
             All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:
65    

          Teach us, sprite or bird,
             What sweet thoughts are thine:
          I have never heard
             Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
70    

          Chorus Hymenæl,
             Or triumphal chant,
          Matched with thine would be all
             But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
75    

          [205] What objects are the fountains
             Of thy happy strain?
          What fields, or waves, or mountains?
             What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
80    

          With thy clear keen joyance
             Languor cannot be:
          Shadow of annoyance
             Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
85    

          Waking or asleep,
             Thou of death must deem
          Things more true and deep
             Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
90    

          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.
95    

          [206] 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.
100    

          Better than all measures
             Of delightful sound,
          Better than all treasures
             That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
105    

          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.

 

 

 

 

Erstdruck und Druckvorlage

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Prometheus Unbound.
A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts. With Other Poems.
London: Ollier 1820, S. 201-206.

URL: https://archive.org/details/prometheusunboun02shel
URL: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005027278
URL: https://books.google.de/books?id=DlcJAAAAQAAJ

Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck (Editionsrichtlinien).

 

Kommentierte und kritische Ausgaben

 

 

 

Literatur

Barcus, James E. (Hrsg.): Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Critical Heritage. London u.a. 1995.

Brandmeyer, Rudolf: Poetologische Lyrik. In: Handbuch Lyrik. Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte. Hrsg. von Dieter Lamping. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart 2016, S. 164-168.

Curdts, Soelve I.: "Inviolable Voice": Romantic Conceits of Modernity. In: The Life of Birds in Literature. Hrsg. von Marie-Luise Egbert. Trier 2015, S.  55-69.

Daniela, Cerimonia: Leopardi and Shelley. Discovery, Translation and Reception. Oxford 2015.

Duff, David: Romanticism and the Uses of Genre. Oxford 2009.

Duff, David (Hrsg.): The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism. Oxford 2018.

Gymnich, Marion / Müller-Zettelmann, Eva: Metalyrik: Gattungsspezifische Besonderheiten, Formenspektrum und zentrale Funktionen. In: Metaisierung in Literatur und anderen Medien. Theoretische Grundlagen – Historische Perspektiven – Metagattungen – Funktionen. Hrsg. von Janine Hauthal u.a. Berlin u.a. 2007 (= spectrum Literaturwissenschaft / spectrum Literature, 12), S. 65-91.

Jackson, Virginia: Dickinson's Misery. A Theory of Lyric Reading. Princeton u. Oxford 2005.
Vgl. S. 188-189.

Mackenney, Francesca: Birdsong, Speech and Poetry. The Art of Composition in the Long Nineteenth Century. Cambridge u.a. 2023.

Mahoney, Charles (Hrsg.): A Companion to Romantic Poetry. Oxford u.a. 2011.

O'Neill, Michael / Howe, Anthony (Hrsg.): The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford 2013.

Schmid, Susanne: Shelley's German Afterlives 1814 – 2000. New York u.a. 2007.

Schmid, Susanne / Rossington, Michael (Hrsg.): The Reception of P. B. Shelley in Europe. London u.a. 2008.

 

 

Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer