Discussion Topic
Interpreting the phrase "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought" in Shelley's "To a Skylark"
Summary:
The phrase "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought" in Shelley's "To a Skylark" suggests that the most beautiful and poignant art often arises from deep sorrow and melancholy. It reflects the idea that profound emotions, especially sadness, can inspire the most moving and resonant creative expressions.
What does "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought" mean in Shelley's "To a Skylark"?
The line you are referring to is more easily understood in the context of the full stanza.
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.
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.
The only catch is that if we were born to never feel sadness, we would thus never come near joy as exuberant as the skylark's joy. Without sadness, how would one know joy? Without pain how would one know comfort?
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought because without intense sadness we would never know intense happiness. For instance, every hero must go through pain and trials to reach their goal and be victorious -- the victory would be far less sweet if they had suffered less in trying to attain their goal.
Like many of the great Romantic poems, "To a Skylark" possesses a remarkable coherence, by which we mean that all of its parts relate to the whole. One can take a single line, such as this one, and see its relation to the whole poem's meaning.
Looking at the dramatic situation behind the poem, the speaker hears but does not see a skylark, and he contemplates the music this bird makes. The long lines themselves seem to offer a coherent line of thought; each a sentence in itself, they can all be read apart from the short lines, which offer a more introspective meditation on poetry, sadness, and transcendence.
This particular line claims that humans produce the sweetest expression in song or poetry as a result of thinking on human sadness. Unlike us, the skylark sings a purer and more untarnished song of joy:
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
What does the phrase "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought" mean?
The speaker of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "To a Skylark" is amazed at the sheer joy of the bird to whom he listens. As the bird's "rain of melody" showers down upon him, the poet wonders how such "a flood of rapture so divine" can issue from this creature who has not known "love's sad satiety." Unlike this bird from whom joy issues without its having experienced pain, the speaker remarks that humans look at both the past and the future, and their happiness is often bittersweet as it is mixed with some past sorrow. In fact, the speaker observes, "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." That is, men's happiness is often measured by the extent to which they have suffered because, for humans, it is not possible to experience deep happiness unless they have truly known sorrow; these emotions are in direct proportion to one another. Perhaps, as Shelley supposes, the happiness of the lark is in its mind--"Teach me half the gladness/That thy brain must know"--while men's is in their hearts and,so, must include all emotions.
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