To a Skylark

“To a Skylark” is an ode. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics defines ode as a “formal, ceremonious, and complexly organized form of lyric poetry, usually of considerable length” (p. 971). Shelley created a form for the poem to emulate the song of the skylark. This form includes 105 lines broken into 21 stanzas. Each five-line stanza, or cinquain, has an ABABB rhyme scheme, which gives the poem a musical quality and connects the rhyming words.

Each stanza uses two meters—one metrical structure for the first four lines and a different structure for the last line of each stanza. The first four lines of each stanza are in trochaic trimeter, which consists of three metrical feet: Each foot contains a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. For example, Line 6 metrically scans: “Higher | still and | higher,” like the flapping of bird wings in flight.

The final line of each stanza is in iambic hexameter, which is also called an alexandrine. Iambic hexameter is six metrical feet, where each foot contains an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. For instance, Line 30 metrically scans: “The moon | rains out | her beams | and Hea- | ven is | overflowed.