Keen as are the arrows / Of that silver sphere, / Whose intense lamp narrows / In the white dawn clear / Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
-- Speaker (Lines 21-25)

Importance: In these lines from the fifth stanza of the poem the poet describes the striking brilliance of the moonlight. This intensity of luminescence fades as dawn approaches. But the poet describes an ethereal presence of the night’s moon lingering into the dawn.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird, / What sweet thoughts are thine: / I have never heard / Praise of love or wine / That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
-- Speaker (Lines 61-65)

Importance: In these lines from the thirteenth stanza of the poem Shelley describes the skylark as perhaps both bird and spirit. The mercurial nature of its elegance suggests that it is possessed of the spirit of nature. This transcends its outward physical form. The bird’s inner world, the poet assumes, must...