On Shelley's "To a Skylark" and Coleridge's "The Nightingale"

     Though he outlived Shelley by roughly 12 years, Coleridge was by far Shelley's senior in terms of the poetic tradition, given that the later's work was heavily influenced by the former and his contemporary William Wordsworth, Given this context, it becomes very easy to see To a Skylark and Coleridge's The Nightingale. Both use a bird (the Nightingale for Coleridge, the Skylark for Shelley) and nature itself as a metaphor for a place and time that is special for the speaker. Both also ultimately develop a melancholy tone; Colerisge's connection to childhood nostalgia, and Shelley's lamentation of the ephemeral nature of current happiness. According to Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley, the poem was written after a stroll through a garden one evening, both recalling the song of the Skylark. This itself explains the various references to nature itself; rather than just a random set of metaphors and similes, they all use the reference point of the garden and the facets of nature found in it along their stroll. For example, the blue sky (blue deep thou wingest), dew on the grass (In a dell of dew), and most obviously the hanging street lights (Whose intense lamp narrows).
     For both Coleridge and Shelley, the respective birds they write about represent more than just a flying avian; they represent ideas and feelings that they both feel. And as mentioned before, Shelley's To a Skylark also dips into the melancholy and the contemplative. Using his contemplation of why exactly the Skylark is a symbol of happiness (What objects are the fountains/Of thy happy strain?), Shelley ultimately breaks out of this and into a contemplation of love as a fountain of both happiness and pain (Thou lovest-but ne'er knew love's sad satiety). Eventually, this becomes an examination of the poetic fixation on the melancholy, which in this case could directly refer to Coleridge's lamentation of the loss of childhood innocence (Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought). This is something that Shelley itself cannot comprehend, and ultimately begs the Skylark to let him share in his happiness untainted by bitterness (Teach me half the gladness/That thy brain must know).
     Ultimately, To a Skylark is both an homage to the literary tradition represented by Coleridge, but also a criticism. Both use birds as a symbol of the poet's feelings and thoughts, but Shelley intentionally chose a bird other than the over-used Nightingale as a way to distance himself from the baggage represented by that trope. Essentially, Shelley kept the poem close enough for a conversation (thus also choosing a bird), but not too close.