Shelley's "To a Nightingale" is a poem that explores the idea of the beauty and transcendence of nature, particularly as it is represented by the figure of the nightingale. The poem is structured as a dialogue between the speaker and the nightingale, with the speaker expressing his admiration for the bird's song and the nightingale responding with its own song.
One of the most striking aspects of the poem is the way in which Shelley uses the nightingale as a symbol for the beauty and power of nature. The nightingale's song is described as being "a deathless spirit" that can "heal the wounds of despair." This suggests that the nightingale, and by extension nature itself, has the ability to bring solace and comfort to those who are suffering.
Another important theme in the poem is the idea of transcendence. The nightingale is described as being able to "soar beyond the world of care," suggesting that it is able to rise above the problems and difficulties of everyday life. This idea is further reinforced by the way in which the nightingale is able to bring the speaker "out of the self," allowing him to escape from his own thoughts and concerns and be fully present in the moment.
Overall, "To a Nightingale" is a beautiful and evocative poem that captures the essence of nature's beauty and power. Through its depiction of the nightingale's song, Shelley is able to convey the idea that nature has the ability to bring solace, comfort, and transcendence to those who are able to fully appreciate its beauty.
Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley about Nightingale
If you divide suffering and dross, you may Diminish till it is consumed away; If you divide pleasure and love and thought, Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not How much, while any yet remains unshared, Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared: This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law By which those live, to whom this world of life Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife Tills for the promise of a later birth The wilderness of this Elysian earth. It is the most magical of songbirds. Thou living Form Among the Dead! Its song is strong and fitful—restless, compelling. True Love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away. Rhyme Scheme: AA BCB CDE FGF GHG HGH GIG JKJ KLK MNM NON OPO QRP STS GUG UGU GVG WGV GGG GGG GXG XYX YZYA2 B2C2B2 A A - - - - - - A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune B I think such hearts yet never came to good C Hated to hear under the stars or moon B - One nightingale in an interfluous wood C Satiate the hungry dark with melody D And as a vale is watered by a flood E - Or as the moonlight fills the open sky F Struggling with darkness as a tuberose G Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie F - Like clouds above the flower from which they rose G The singing of that happy nightingale H In this sweet forest from the golden close G - Of evening till the star of dawn may fail H Was interfused upon the silentness G The folded roses and the violets pale H - Heard her within their slumbers the abyss G Of heaven with all its planets the dull ear I Of the night cradled earth the loneliness G - Of the circumfluous waters every sphere J And every flower and beam and cloud and wave K And every wind of the mute atmosphere J - And every beast stretched in its rugged cave K And every bird lulled on its mossy bough L And every silver moth fresh from the grave K - Which is its cradle ever from below M Aspiring like one who loves too fair too far N To be consumed within the purest glow M - Of one serene and unapproached star N As if it were a lamp of earthly light O Unconscious as some human lovers are N - Itself how low how high beyond all height O The heaven where it would perish and every form P That worshipped in the temple of the night O - Was awed into delight and by the charm Q Girt as with an interminable zone R Whilst that sweet bird whose music was a storm P - Of sound shook forth the dull oblivion S Out of their dreams harmony became love T In every soul but one S - - - And so this man returned with axe and saw G At evening close from killing the tall treen U The soul of whom by Nature s gentle law G - Was each a wood nymph and kept ever green U The pavement and the roof of the wild copse G Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene U - With jagged leaves and from the forest tops G Singing the winds to sleep or weeping oft V Fast showers of aereal water drops G - Into their mother s bosom sweet and soft W Nature s pure tears which have no bitterness G Around the cradles of the birds aloft V - They spread themselves into the loveliness G Of fan like leaves and over pallid flowers G Hang like moist clouds or where high branches kiss G - Make a green space among the silent bowers G Like a vast fane in a metropolis G Surrounded by the columns and the towers G - All overwrought with branch like traceries G In which there is religion and the mute X Persuasion of unkindled melodies G - Odours and gleams and murmurs which the lute X Of the blind pilot spirit of the blast Y Stirs as it sails now grave and now acute X - Wakening the leaves and waves ere it has passed Y To such brief unison as on the brain Z One tone which never can recur has cast Y One accent never to return again A2 - - - The world is full of Woodmen who expel B2 Love s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life C2 And vex the nightingales in every dell B2 Percy Bysshe Shelley If you liked "The Woodman And The Nightingale poem rhyme scheme and rhyming analysis" page. Art thou not void of guile, A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless? Ah, woe is me! Perhaps most famously this happens when Romeo and Juliet, after spending their one night together hear a bird, and debate whether it is nightingale or a lark The connection between the nightingale and the poet, both as singers, is explored most fully in the Romantic period.
. I am not thine: I am a part of thee. You should visit the pages below. There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor Paved her light steps;—on an imagined shore, Under the gray beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, That I beheld her not. The poem about the nightingale may continually try to escape its own literary history—indeed, it needs to do so in order to stay vital—and yet it also takes its place in that splendid tradition. And so this man returned with axe and saw At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature's gentle law Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene With jagged leaves,-and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep-or weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness;-- Around the cradles of the birds aloft They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:-or, where high branches kiss, Make a green space among the silent bowers, Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion-and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again.
Poem: The Woodman And The Nightingale by Percy Bysshe Shelley
In the words Of antique verse and high romance, -- in form, Sound, colour -- in whatever checks that Storm Which with the shattered present chokes the past; And in that best philosophy, whose taste Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom As glorious as a fiery martyrdom; Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. But if you want to take part in the Poetry By Heart competition or use the Teaching Zone resources, you'll need to register. The concluding sestet makes reference to the Greek myth of Philomela whose suffering was eased when she was turned into a nightingale. We're not interested in your data You can use most of our website without any need to register. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. It is too cold for nightingales to survive in Chile.
The wingèd words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire— I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire! A well of sealed and secret happiness, Whose waters like blithe light and music are, Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Thou Moon beyond the clouds! When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again Deliverance. The singing of the nightingale becomes a metaphor for writing poetry here, and listening to that bird that natural music becomes a metaphor for reading it. She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day, Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, Led into light, life, peace. One stood on my path who seemed As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed As is the Moon, whose changes ever run Into themselves, to the eternal Sun; The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles, Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles, That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, And warms not but illumines. Then haste Over the hearts of men, until ye meet Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, And bid them love each other and be blessed: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest,—for I am Love's.
The hour is come:—the destined Star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. All information in here has been published only for educational and informational purposes. And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul—they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. Lady mine, Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, Will be as of the trees of Paradise. Registration takes a minute or two.
The Woodman And The Nightingale by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror! The Love-s gentle Dryads from the haunts of And vex the nightingales in every dell. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, But, as it were Titanic; in the heart Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone, Lifting itself in caverns light and high: For all the antique and learnèd imagery Has been erased, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild-vine interknit The volumes of their many-twining stems; Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, Or fragments of the day's intense serene;— Working mosaic on their Parian floors. The sisters then escape by turning into birds. And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, And all my being became bright or dim As the Moon's image in a summer sea, According as she smiled or frowned on me; And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed: Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead:— For at her silver voice came Death and Life, Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother, And through the cavern without wings they flew, And cried 'Away, he is not of our crew. How do you respond to the final couplet? Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, And say:—'We are the masters of thy slave; What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine? The nightingale has its own rich history of representations in poetry. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinels—but true Love never yet Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents; like Heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos. Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow; I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song All of its much mortality and wrong, With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy: Then smile on it, so that it may not die.
Despite the fact that she had twelve children with her husband, it was a troubled relationship and, after eventually leaving him, she turned to novel writing to raise money. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of th'Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. Ovid tells a version of the Philomela myth Philomela was Greek for nightingale which connects the nightingale to both mourning and violence. I know That Love makes all things equal: I have heard By mine own heart this joyous truth averred: The spirit of the worm beneath the sod In love and worship, blends itself with God. A Star Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone? To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still; To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united Even as a bride, delighting and delighted.
The Woodman And The Nightingale Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I never was attached to that great sect, Whose doctrine is, that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion, though it is in the code Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go. They have also noted its difference from us. In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap Under the lightnings of the soul—too deep For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity! Emily, I love thee; though the world by no thin name Will hide that love from its unvalued shame. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, Imagination! This is because we need to know who you are and how we can talk to you, and where to send your competition resource pack if you are eligible to take part in the competition. Thou Star above the Storm! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on! All the poem selections and ways of interacting with those are freely available, the resources in the Learning Zone, and lots of information about the Poetry By Heart competition including the competition guides.
And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality. Analysis of this poem A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune I think such hearts yet never came to good Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;-- And as a vale is watered by a flood, Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness Of the circumfluous waters,—every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, And every wind of the mute atmosphere, And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave Which is its cradle—ever from below Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish! VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY, EMILIA V---, NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF --- L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. As a counter to the story of Philomela, poets have periodically reminded us that the nightingale is a real bird operating in the natural world. What have I dared? This is the very point of W. You should visit the pages below.
It begins—and ends, too—with an unseen bird that continues to trill and whistle in the darkness long after the other birds have quieted for the evening. Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse! And so this man returned with axe and saw At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature-s gentle law Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene With jagged leaves,-and from the forest tops Singing the winds to Fast showers of aereal Into their Nature-s pure tears which have no bitterness;-- Around the cradles of the birds aloft They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:-or, where high branches Make a green Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion-and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again. Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, Wounded and weak and panting; the cold day Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune I Hated to hear, One Satiate the And as a vale is Or as the Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose Peoples some Like The In this Of Was The Heard her Of Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness Of the And And And And And Which is its cradle—ever from below Aspiring like one who To be Of one As if it were a lamp of Unconscious, as some Itself how low, how high The That Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an Whilst that Of sound, Out of In. Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As if he were fearful, that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music! My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, Of such hard matter dost thou entertain; Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring Thee to base company as chance may do , Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again, My last delight! A Smile amid dark frowns? A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure? } }; A woodman whose rough I think such hearts yet never came to good Hated to hear, under the stars or One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry And as a vale is watered by a flood, Or as the moonlight fills the open Struggling with darkness-as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they The singing of that In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness Of the circumfluous waters,-every sphere And every flower and beam and And every And every And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every Which is its cradle-ever from below Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly Unconscious, as some human lovers are, Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish! The nightingale has always had tremendous metaphorical and symbolic power.
