Birds and poetry (14 Viewers)

[Bascar]

Steve, I’m sorry you didn’t warm to Tomalin’s biography of Hardy. I must get hold of a copy as you have whetted my appetite!

Meanwhile, here are two rather splendid triolets from the great man himself.


Birds at Winter Nightfall

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

Thomas Hardy


The Puzzled Game-Birds

They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be -
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us, -
For would they not fair terms concede us?
- If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be!

Thomas Hardy


Andrew

 

[Bascar]

The last two days have been warm and sunny, quite glorious for early February. Although it is a bit earlier in the year than Larkin was writing about, I did find myself today echoing the last two lines of this poem.


The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin


Andrew

 

[dolphinbride]

An early valentine?


since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

 

[Tyke]

Nice poems from Mary Oliver , Nerine & Andrew-I liked The First Thrush particularly.

Thanks for bringing John Clare back Nerine & Andrew.What a wonderful naturalist he was.

Following Dolphinbride's example ( an unusually intelligible e e cummings !) :-

THE ARCTIC LOVER

One is the long, long winter night;
Look, my beloved one!
How glorious, through his depths of light,
Rolls the majestic sun!
The willows, waked from winter's death,
Give out a fragrance like thy breath--
The summer is begun!

Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day:
Hark to that mighty crash!
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away--
The smitten waters flash;
Seaward the glittering mountain rides,
While, down its green translucent sides,
The foamy torrents dash.

See, love, my boat is moored for thee
By ocean's weedy floor--
The petrel does not skim the sea
More swiftly than my oar.
We'll go where, on the rocky isles,
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles
Beside the pebbly shore.

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows,
With wind-flowers frail and fair,
While I, upon his isle of snow,
Seek and defy the bear.
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,
This arm his savage strength shall tame,
And drag him from his lair.

When crimson sky and flamy cloud
Bespeak the summer o'er,
And the dead valleys wear a shroud
Of snows that melt no more,
I'll build of ice thy winter home,
With glistening walls and glassy dome,
And spread with skins the floor.

The white fox by thy couch shall play;
And, from the frozen skies,
The meteors of a mimic day
Shall flash upon thine eyes.
And I -- for such thy vow -- meanwhile
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile,
Till that long midnight flies.

William Cullen Bryant

...and to follow Andrew's two Hardy poems :-

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.

Thomas Hardy

___________________________
Colin

 

[Bascar]

Kristina, thanks for that splendid e e cummings poem.

Two good poems, Colin. The Bryant is interesting – one doesn’t immediately associate the Arctic with romantic enticement!

On the Valentine theme, here are two early Yeats poems, the second based on a traditional Irish song.


TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER

Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.

She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.

She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.

W B Yeats


DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

W B Yeats


Andrew

 

[Tyke]

Two lovely poems Andrew.

Colin

 

[Bascar]

Fourth Anniversary

A reminder that today is the fourth anniversary of this thread. Is there a longer running thread on BF? Very best wishes to Christine, who started it, and to all contributors and the many visitors who stop by and read the poems.

B B B B


My contribution for Valentine’s Day is this poem from Seamus Heaney:

Twice Shy

Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.

Seamus Heaney


Andrew

 

[Nerine]

A great Seamus Heaney poem, Andrew, lovely for Valentine's Day!

I'm sorry, I've chosen a sad love poem. (I still have John Clare and his sad life on my mind.) He is speaking about Mary Joyce, his first love; he never married her but he believed, in his confused mind, that she was his wife.

Song

I think of thee at early day
And wonder where my love can be
And when the evening shadow’s grey
O how I think of thee

Along the meadow banks I rove
And down the flaggy fen
And hope, my first and early love,
To meet thee once again

I think of thee at dewy morn
And at the sunny noon
And walks with thee – now left forlorn
Beneath the silent moon

I think of thee I think of all
How blest we both have been –
The sun looks pale upon the wall
And autumn shuts the scene

I can’t expect to meet thee now
The winter floods begin
The wind sighs through the naked bough
Sad as my heart within

I think of thee the seasons through
In spring when flowers I see
In winter’s lorn and naked view
I think of only thee

While life breathes on this earthly ball
What e’er my lot may be
Whether in freedom or in thrall
Mary I think of thee

John Clare

Nerine

Is it really four years this thread has been running! Many thanks once again, Christine, and my very best wishes also!

 

[Nerine]

Oh I forgot to say how I love all the other valentine poems too. Many thanks, Kristina, Colin and Andrew. Fabulous poetry.
Nerine

 

[Birdy Trish]

There's this one by William Wordsworth.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud - it has sung for three years.
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment: what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees:
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.


What a great collection of poems about birds.

 

[Bascar]

An absolutely beautiful Clare poem, Nerine, so simple and almost unbearably poignant and sad. Do you know when it was written?

Trish, a warm welcome to the thread, and many thanks for posting 'The Reverie of Poor Susan' - a wonderful poem.


Andrew

 

[dolphinbride]

Happy Fourth Birthday to Birds and Poetry!!! Many Happy Returns!

Beautiful poems Andrew, Colin & Nerine! This thread is truly such a beacon to me, thank you all!

As it is still Valentine's Day here for a few more minutes, I'd like to add these two...


First Love


I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start --
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not love's appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more

John Clare


He Wishes For The 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


Welcome Trish, lovely!

Kristina

 

[Bascar]

Kristina, thank you for another superb poem from John Clare, a wonderful companion to the one Nerine posted.

My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more

- quite beautiful lines, and perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Many thanks also for reminding us of that great Yeats poem. It is one of my very favourite – I never tire of reading it.



On a Fine Morning

Whence comes Solace?--Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life's conditions,
Nor from heeding Time's monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.

Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irised embowment;
But as nothing other than
Part of a benignant plan;
Proof that earth was made for man.

Thomas Hardy


Andrew

 

[scampo]

There's this one by William Wordsworth.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud - it has sung for three years.
...

A lovely poem from Wordsworth - welcome to the thread.

 

[scampo]

I seem to have stopped receiving emails from BF on this thread - here I was thinking it had gone quiet when in truth it's fairly erupting with glorious poetry!

Here is a small extract from Clare's autobiographical writings, rather than a poem. I hope you enjoy reading it. His idiosyncratic spellings and grammar are, in their way, a treat, too.

"I lovd to employ leisure in wandering about the fields watching the habits of birds to see the woodpecker s[w]eeing away in its ups and downs and the jay birds chattering by the wood side its restless warnings of passing clowns. ...a lonly nook a rude bridge or woodland style with ivy growing around the posts delighted me and made lasting impressions on my feelings but I knew nothing of poetry then yet I noticd every thing as anxious as I do now and every thing pleasd me as much I thought the gipseys camp by the green wood side a picturesque and an adorning object to nature and I lovd the cuckoos ‘wandering voise’ and the restless song of the Nightingale and was delighted while I paused and mutterd its sweet jug jug as I passd its black bower I often pulld my hat over my eyes to watch the rising of the lark or to see the hawk hang in the summer sky and the kite take its circles round the wood I often lingered a minute on the woodland stile to hear the wood pigions clapping their wings among the dark oaks I hunted curious flowers in raptures and muttered thoughts in their praise I lovd the pasture with its rushes and thistles and sheep tracks I adored the wild marshy fen with its solitary hernshaw sweeing along in its mellan[c]holy sky I wandered the heath in raptures among the rabbit burrows and golden blossomd furze I dropt on a thymy mole hill or mossy eminence to survey the summer landscape as full of raptures as now..."​

 

[Tyke]

Lovely poems from Andrew, Nerine, Kristina & Trish.

That is a terrific piece from John Clare Steve.To have "seen" birds like that-the cuckoo's "wandering" voice-the woodpecker & the "hernshaw" "sweeing away".

He was the consumate naturalist poet.

Colin

 

[scampo]

Lovely poems from Andrew, Nerine, Kristina & Trish.

That is a terrific piece from John Clare Steve.bTo have "seen" birds like that-the cuckoo's "wandering" voice-the woodpecker & the "hernshaw" "sweeing away".
He was the consumate naturalist poet.
Colin

Reading him, you almost wish you could share the way his mind saw and felt nature. It must have been a kind of escape and solace for his tired mind.

 

[Bascar]

That is a wonderful piece of writing from John Clare, Steve. Thanks for posting it. Nature in all its aspects obviously meant so much to him. (I love the word ‘sweeing’ – looked it up but couldn’t find it anywhere. I can guess what he meant but is it a word of his own invention?)

Here is another close description of the natural world, from a more sophisticated and unlikely source!


Magdalen Walks

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of leaves, and of grass, and of newly up-turned earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing a-down the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

Oscar Wilde


Andrew

 

[scampo]

A pleasant poem from Oscar Wilde, Andrew - I'd never seen it before - very "Victorian" in its style!
Here is another small section from John Clare's autobiographical writings in which Chauncey Townsend, a Londoner, having developed a keen interest in England's "peasant poet", made his first visit to Helpston. Townsend was to befriend and help Clare but this first meeting was a surprise. The extract is sad, revealing as it does how little understanding and help society provides for those who are, in any way, different from a rather narrow 'norm'. Clearly, Clare's shyness was a terrible obstacle to his learning and development even while, perhaps, at the same time, it created the very conditions that led to his creating such often beautiful verse.

"I had a timidity that made me very awkward and silent in the presence of my superiors which gave me a great deal of trouble and hurt my feelings...​

Chauncy Hare Townsend came to see me it was one evening in summer and asked me if John Clare lived there I told him I was he and he seemd supprised and askd agen to be satisfied for I was shabby ands dirty he was dissapointed I dare say at finding I had little or nothing to say for I had always a natural depression of spirits in the presence of strangers that took from me all power of freedom or familiarity and made me dull and silent for [if] I attempted to say anything I coud not recollect it and made so many hums and hahs in the story that I was obliged to leave it unfinished..."​

Right to what was to be a sad and undignified end Clare was, as he said:

...A silent man in lifes affairs
A thinker from a Boy,
A Peasant in his daily cares—
The Poet in his joy.
​

To finish here are a few lines from Clare's poem "The Nightingale's Nest". The poem has already been posted but it well deserves a little more space:

...Up this green woodland rise lets softly rove
And list the nightingale — she dwelleth here
Hush let the wood gate softly clasp — for fear
The noise may drive her from her home of love. . .
​

 

[Bascar]

Thanks for those extracts, Steve, very interesting and very sad. Yes, it must have been exceedingly difficult for the poor man to cope with the sopisticates who visited him. It wouldn't have done anything for his mental condition.

The Nightingale's Nest is a most beautiful poem, full of wonderful tenderness. It could well do with another appearance.

I meant to post this last week to set beside the love poems that Nerine and Kristina posted. Quite apart from being beautiful poems in themselves, they show that his tenderness was not confined to the creatures of the natural world.


Song of Secret Love

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light;
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love goodbye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
The fly's bass turned to lion's roar;
And even the silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.

John Clare


Andrew