Charles Harper
Régisseur
Yes, sorry, Steve. It was the only bird poem I could think of...
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Birds and poetry (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter christineredgate
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Elizabeth Bigg
Addicted member
Charles Harper said:
Not even this, from The Mikado, Charles?
Tit-Willow
On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang "Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing 'Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow?'"
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
He slapp'd at his chest as he sat on that bough,
Singing "Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow,
Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!
He sobb'd and he sigh'd, and a gurgle he gave,
Then he threw himself into the billowy wave,
And an echo arose from the suicide's grave-
"Oh willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name
Isn't Willow tit-willow, tit-willow,
That 'twas blighted affection that made him exclaim,
"Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!"
And if you remain callous and obdurate, I
Shall perish as he did, and you will know why,
Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die,
"Oh willow, tit-willow, tit-willow!" . .
Charles Harper
Régisseur
Takes me back a-ways, Liz...
Nerine
Well-known member
W H Davies wrote The Kingfisher which starts:
My favourite W H Davies is:
Nice thread, Nerine
"It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues;"
And left thee all her lovely hues;"
My favourite W H Davies is:
"How sweet this morning air in Spring,
When tender is the grass and wet!
I see some little leaves have not
Outgrown their curly childhood yet;
And cows no longer hurry home,
However sweet a voice cries “Come”
Here, with green nature all around,
While that fine bird the skylark sings;
Who now in such a passion is,
He flies by it, and not his wings;
And many a blackbird, thrush, and sparrow,
Sing sweeter songs than I may borrow.
These watery swamps and thickets wild –
Called Nature’s slums – to me are more
Than any courts where fountains play,
And men-at-arms guard every door;
For I could sit down here alone,
And count the oak-trees one by one"
When tender is the grass and wet!
I see some little leaves have not
Outgrown their curly childhood yet;
And cows no longer hurry home,
However sweet a voice cries “Come”
Here, with green nature all around,
While that fine bird the skylark sings;
Who now in such a passion is,
He flies by it, and not his wings;
And many a blackbird, thrush, and sparrow,
Sing sweeter songs than I may borrow.
These watery swamps and thickets wild –
Called Nature’s slums – to me are more
Than any courts where fountains play,
And men-at-arms guard every door;
For I could sit down here alone,
And count the oak-trees one by one"
Nice thread, Nerine
scampo
Steve Campsall
A touch of Clare, in that one, Nerine. What fine stuff for a Sunday.
Here's a fine poem that Elizabeth might also appreciate, thinking about her comments on teaching. It has a sting in its tail:
Flycatchers
Sweet pretty fledglings, perched on the rail arow,
Expectantly happy, where ye can watch below
Your parents a–hunting i’ the meadow grasses
All the gay morning to feed you with flies;
Ye recall me a time sixty summers ago,
When, a young chubby chap, I sat just so
With others on a school–form rank’d in a row,
Not less eager and hungry than you, I trow,
With intelligences agape and eyes aglow,
While an authoritative old wise-acreStood over us and from a desk fed us with flies.
Dead flies – such as litter the library south-window,
That buzzed at the panes until they fell stiff-baked on the sill,Or are roll’d up asleep i’the blinds at sunrise,
Or wafer’d flat in a shrunken folio.
A dry bi-ped he was, nurtured likewise
On skins and skeletons, stale from top to toe
With all manner of rubbish and all manner of lies.
Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
scampo
Steve Campsall
Here is another poem about a bird; and far more.
I don't think a more powerful poem will ever be written. For me, it always has been and always will be, I am sure, utterly spell-binding.
The Second Coming
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats (1922)
I don't think a more powerful poem will ever be written. For me, it always has been and always will be, I am sure, utterly spell-binding.
The Second Coming
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats (1922)
Steve - I love Yeats, but hadn't come across that one (I must check if it's in my anthology).
Another really short and simple one, which perfectly captures the moment for me, is this by Tennyson - taught to us at school as an example of alliteration because of the opening line !!
The Eagle
HE clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls
Another really short and simple one, which perfectly captures the moment for me, is this by Tennyson - taught to us at school as an example of alliteration because of the opening line !!
The Eagle
HE clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls
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Elizabeth Bigg
Addicted member
Steve (Scampo) said: Here's a fine poem that Elizabeth might also appreciate, thinking about her comments on teaching. It has a sting in its tail:
Not me this time Steve - I think you are referring to Annie's post!!! :eek!:
Not me this time Steve - I think you are referring to Annie's post!!! :eek!:
I've just been talking to a friend who has been working overseas for many years - and mentioned this thread about poetry and birds. He mentioned that in home-sick moments, he always turns to Robert Browning's "Home-thoughts, from Abroad". I just re-read it and had completely forgotten about the brid-song references :
O, TO be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
I hope you realise Christine, that as a result of your thread I haven't done anything I intended to do today - but instead have been sitting looking out at the garden, reading poetry ....... I owe you a large B
Annie
O, TO be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
I hope you realise Christine, that as a result of your thread I haven't done anything I intended to do today - but instead have been sitting looking out at the garden, reading poetry ....... I owe you a large B
Annie
scampo
Steve Campsall
Sorry - you're right. I was rushing my reply as, like you, I've been on this laptop a bit too much today! Went for a lovely walk - but talk about "February fill dyke", the local footpath looked more like a stream bed. Needless to say, which one of us do you think forgot his walking boots!Elizabeth Bigg said:
BTW - has this site had another "outage"? It's been dead as a dodo for quite a short while.
scampo
Steve Campsall
Yeats? Nothing to do with birds, but what do you think about this tiny gem?AnnieW said:
He Wishes For Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W B Yeats
Edward woodwood
Member
who could forget one of England's finest sons: William Blake:
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.
Elizabeth Bigg
Addicted member
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crookèd hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
--Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crookèd hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
--Tennyson
Edward woodwood
Member
one for from old William Bloke
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings
scampo
Steve Campsall
The establishment called him mad at the time, Tim. Here's one of the reasons why that was so important:Tim Allwood said:
The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.
William Blake, 1794
christineredgate
Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th
A huge thankyou to everyone who contributed to this thread. :clap: :flowers:I have printed off every poem,(the only useful thing learned in my IT Diploma class,was how to copy and paste !!).
I am going to store them all in a folder,and see how many more I can find.
Stephen D,if you venture onto this thread,it was lovely to meet Jane and yourself this afternoon,pity about the Greenshanks.!!Thankyou.
I am going to store them all in a folder,and see how many more I can find.
Stephen D,if you venture onto this thread,it was lovely to meet Jane and yourself this afternoon,pity about the Greenshanks.!!Thankyou.
Steve - yes, that really is a gem. Yeats wrote one of my favourite lines in literature - from "When You are Old",scampo said:
"But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face"
But back to Christine's request - another from Yeats with birdy overtures !!
The White Birds
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
W.B. Yeats
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Or how about a poem about the most un-poetic of birds :
Vulture
The vulture's very like a sack,
Set down and left there drooping.
His crooked neck and creaky back
Look badly bent from stooping
Down to the ground, to eat dead cows,
So they won't go to waste;
Thus making up in usefulness
For what he lacks in taste.
I''m afraid I can't remember where I came across this, or who wrote it.
Vulture
The vulture's very like a sack,
Set down and left there drooping.
His crooked neck and creaky back
Look badly bent from stooping
Down to the ground, to eat dead cows,
So they won't go to waste;
Thus making up in usefulness
For what he lacks in taste.
I''m afraid I can't remember where I came across this, or who wrote it.
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