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Birds and poetry (1 Viewer)

Willim Butler once again - his best some would say. I think he might have agreed.

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?


W B Yeats
 
Another Yeats, also a favourite of mine and there is one mention of birds:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evenings full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.​

Nerine (love it!)
 
Thanks,again ,everyone,Annie and Steve,I think you could both keep this running for evermore.
Nerine,yes ,I love the "Isle of Innisfree ".Any poetry concerning Scotland is usually very ,very good.
 
christineredgat said:
Thanks,again ,everyone,Annie and Steve,I think you could both keep this running for evermore.
Sounds like a challenge to me Steve ;) and never one to baulk at a challenge, a Scottish poem about ravens by Anonymous :

The Twa Corbies

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As I was walking all alane,[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I heard twa corbies makin a mane;[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"
[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I wot there lies a new slain knight;[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And nane do ken that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
"His hound is tae the huntin gane,
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]His lady's tain anither mate,[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]So we may mak oor dinner swate."

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Wi ae lock o his gowden hair [/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair."
[/font]

I think I may have a translation somewhere !!!
 
Thanks,Annie,I can cope with the translation!!.I spent several years ,on and off living on a hill sheep farm in a very remote area in Perthshire,one did need a translator,most of the time.
 
Nerine said:
W H Davies wrote The Kingfisher which starts:

"It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues;"​

Nice thread, Nerine
. . . . and a very nice poem from you, Nerine. It stepped on my grave, hadn't heard it for a long time but the words kept pushing their way through the cobwebs I call a brain as I read it.

And yes, a very nice thread all together, thanks to all who have posted.
 
Beverlybaynes said:
My feeble contribution would be from the Beatles:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night . . . .
Beverly, not feeble at all - a wonderfully evocative lyric and one of my favourite Beatles songs.
 
Nerine said:
W H Davies wrote The Kingfisher which starts:



"It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,

And left thee all her lovely hues;"


Nice thread, Nerine
Thanks Nerine - I'd not come across this one. I looked it up and read it in bed last night. What a beautiful work - I shall think of it next time I am lucky enough to spot a kingfisher !!

Annie
 
Birds and Poetry - A Big Brother Moment

I've just had one of those spooky internet experiences that makes you wonder if George Orwell didn't have it right after all.

I'd logged on to amazon.com to check the status of a recent order. You know how it gives you recommendations you might like to try well - it has just suggested the following 2 for me :eek!:

On Wings of Song : Poems About Birds - an anthology by J.D. McClatchy &
An Exhilaration of Wings : the Literature of Bird Watching edited by Jen Hill


I must admit I'm quite tempted by them both - but am baffled as to why they have come up in my recommendations, as I don't think I have looked at or bought anything similar from Amazon !!

Anyway, if you're not bored senseless yet, Christine - here's another for you. I was reminded of it on my way to what I knew was going to be a very depressing/stressful meeting at work this morning as I passed an oak tree complete with thrush in full song !!


The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
And age`d thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy
 
AnnieW said:
I've just had one of those spooky internet experiences that makes you wonder if George Orwell didn't have it right after all...

Thomas Hardy
Thanks for that lovely poem. The Darkling Thrush is one of the finest poem's ever written, I think. Hardy is certainly a truly wonderful poet and novelist.
 
The Cuckoo comes in April
He sings his song in May
He changes his tune
In the middle of June
In July he flies away

Not quite the same level as The Darkling Thrush, but it's keeping this thread going!
 
'One of the Early Birds':

It was at the pantomime,
Sweet Mabel and I did meet
She was in the ballet (front row),
And I in a five-shilling seat;
She was dressed like a dickey bird
Beautiful wings she had on,
Figure divine, wished she was mine
On her I was totally gone.

At the stage door, every night
I waited with my bouquet,
Till my bird had moulted and then
We'd drive in a Hansom away.
Oyster suppers and sparkling cham.
Couldn't she go it! What ho
Fivers I spent, tenners I lent,
For to her I couldn't say 'No!'

(altogether now!):

She was a dear little dickey bird,
"Cheep, cheep, cheep," she went,
Sweetly she sang to me
Till all my money was spent;
Then she went off song
We parted on fighting terms,
She was one of the early birds
And I was one of the worms!

T. W. Connor
 
Was there a poem by an American chap called 'Windhover' or something?

Or did I just make that up?

I like Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Snow Goose myself, not poems but little books, both made me cry. (really)
 
Darrenom said:
Was there a poem by an American chap called 'Windhover' or something?
Do you mean this?:

The Windhover:
To Christ our Lord



I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

It's by Gerard Manley Hopkins who was English
 
robinm said:
Do you mean this?:

The Windhover:
To Christ our Lord



I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

It's by Gerard Manley Hopkins who was English

That'll be the one, thanks Robin....I'm sure I hadn't made it up, apart from the american chap bit!
 
"I like Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Snow Goose myself, not poems but little books, both made me cry. (really)"​


Two brilliant books that made me cry too, especially The Snow Goose. Both short books but full of depth and those that can be read over and over again. Thanks for mentioning those, Darren.

Nerine
 
Various bits and pieces to add the assorted replies

The first song written in English starts

Sumer is icumen in
Lhude singe cuccu

(summer is coming, the cuckoo sings loudly) - this also featured at the end of one my favourite films, The Wicker Man (though in a lousy version)

In the who killed cock robin song, the bull is considered to be a bullfinch

In the song 12 days of Xmas, five gold rings is supposed to be a corruption of five goldspinks = goldfinches

The wren features strongly in folklore including rhymes such as

The wren, the wren
the king of all birds
St Stephens Day was caught in the furze
And though he was little his honour was great
So up me lads and give us a treat

which refers to the habit of catching and killing wrens on Boxing Day, giving them a ceremonial burial and then taking the bier round the local houses collecting money (it was normally considered very bad luck to harm a wren)

There are several books to search out, though, with customary carelessness, I can't lay my hands on them at the moment. All are probably out of print at the moment but a search on www.abebooks.co.uk might turn them up

Wordsworth's birds (local cumbrian publisher)

An anthology of bird poetry (published by Penguin - who else)

Shakespeare's birds (Goodfellow and hayman,Magna books)

In addition, there are any number of poems that have been set to music over the years eg hark hark the lark by Schubert, though I think that birds and music really ought to be another thread

Gordon
 
What a find, Gordon! Thanks so much, just been browsing .... not sure if Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark" has already been mentioned; I just love the last verses:


Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then--as I am listening now.

Countless skylarks to be heard in those days, how wonderful!

Nerine

ps Great to be reminded of "sumer is icumen in", Gordon. Had almost forgotten that one.
 
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