To a Skylark

"To a Skylark" is a poem completed by Percy Bysshe Shelley in late June 1820 and published accompanying his lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound by Charles and James Ollier in London.

[1] It was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with his wife Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon.

It was on a beautiful summer evening while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark."

In 1894, music by British composer Arthur Goring Thomas was set to verses from the work in the composition The Swan and the Skylark: Cantata orchestrated by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

[9] In 2004, Mark Hierholzer set the lyrics to music in a score for chorus with keyboard accompaniment entitled "Ode to a Skylark".

First page of the original manuscript to "To a Skylark"
1820 publication in the Prometheus Unbound collection.
1820 cover of Prometheus Unbound , C. and J. Ollier, London.
A Eurasian skylark ( Alauda arvensis ) singing.