Vaughan williams lark ascending program notes

One of the most memorable sights of the British countryside in spring and early summer is the courting flight of the skylark.

Vaughan williams lark ascending program notes

The bird ascends in steps while singing continuously. He hovers for a short while then rises almost vertically to a new point of pause, and them on and up until almost lost from sight. Shelley called the skylark "blythe spirit" and Wordsworth called him the "ethereal minstrel" The Victorian poet George Meredith in his poem "The Lark Ascending" associates the lark with rural English life:

'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine,
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labour in the town;
He sings the sap, the quickened veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of