“The Boy and the Skylark” is the most revolutionary of these pieces. Bees and lambs, ants and silkworms, had been noted for the docility with which they entered into the business of human improvement. This sky-lark asserts the independence of his race. He scorns the limitations of human imagination which conceives of “the feathered race” as serving the little ends of man. Richard, hearing the lark’s song, confesses his sin, under the impression that the “little bird” will betray him, as indeed Dr. Watts and all Lilliput would have had him believe.