christineredgate
Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th
Sad tale ,Steve,for the Eagle.
-
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Birds and poetry (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter christineredgate
- Start date
Just discovered this-beachcombing will take on a different slant.
Relic
I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:
There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed
To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust
Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold:
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.
Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws,
Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose
Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws
Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:
This is the sea's achievement; with shells,
Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.
Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.
Ted Hughes
____________________________________________
Colin
Relic
I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:
There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed
To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust
Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold:
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.
Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws,
Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose
Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws
Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:
This is the sea's achievement; with shells,
Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.
Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.
Ted Hughes
____________________________________________
Colin
christineredgate
Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th
thanks,Colin,your poem reminds me of a couple of days ago,a sheep's skeleton was on the rocks,quite fresh .I guess.and Alfie,our dog made a beeline for it,and was chewing amid'st the bones!!!.But yes on the shoreline one does see so many different bones and bits.I guess crabs are amongst the higher in number,next are bird skulls and bones,and unfortunately ,in this area,sheep carcasses are often to be found,esp when we have had high winds and heavy rain.
Upland Birder
Birding On The Edge
Dotterels, Fieldfares and Redwings
Hello everyone here is a an Old Wiltshire Rhyme about the Dotterel:
When Dotterel do first appear,
It shows that frost is very near:
But when that Dotterel do go,
Then you may look for heavy snow.
Lockley 1966.
How about this one on the Fieldfare
Flocking Fieldfares, speckled like the thrush,
Picking the red haw from the sweeing bush,
That come and go one winters chilling wing.
And seem to share no sympathy with Spring.
John Clare from the Shepherds Calender.
In my view Fieldfares and Redwings represent winter like Swallows and House Martins epitomise Spring.
Are there any poems out there about Redwings?
I'll be back with some new poetry findings soon.
Thanks Dean
PS I may write some of my own!
Hello everyone here is a an Old Wiltshire Rhyme about the Dotterel:
When Dotterel do first appear,
It shows that frost is very near:
But when that Dotterel do go,
Then you may look for heavy snow.
Lockley 1966.
How about this one on the Fieldfare
Flocking Fieldfares, speckled like the thrush,
Picking the red haw from the sweeing bush,
That come and go one winters chilling wing.
And seem to share no sympathy with Spring.
John Clare from the Shepherds Calender.
In my view Fieldfares and Redwings represent winter like Swallows and House Martins epitomise Spring.
Are there any poems out there about Redwings?
I'll be back with some new poetry findings soon.
Thanks Dean
PS I may write some of my own!
I have just come upon this splendid thread and read with pleasure the many wonderful poems, familiar and unfamiliar, submitted. But, apart from an oblique reference by AnnieW and Scampo on the first page of the thread, why no mention of Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale? Maybe it was just too obvious but, to my mind, no thread about birds in poetry can be complete without this great poem.
Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?
Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?
Tanny
Well-known member
Welcome Dean and Bascar, so good to hear from new members to this thread, and to read your contributions.
Dean, I enjoyed your Dotterel and Fieldfare poems, now here is a challenge, write us your own poem about the Redwing, I am searching through my archives for one but failed so far.
Bascar, Thats a great poem and I've read it somewhere before, thanks for bringing it back to me.
Keep up the good work guys.
Dean, I enjoyed your Dotterel and Fieldfare poems, now here is a challenge, write us your own poem about the Redwing, I am searching through my archives for one but failed so far.
Bascar, Thats a great poem and I've read it somewhere before, thanks for bringing it back to me.
Keep up the good work guys.
Nerine
Well-known member
Bascar - Ode to a Nightingale Thank you so much for this, and yes a truly great poem. I studied it at school and it was my favourite of everything I learnt, I believe I knew it off my heart once but I'd forgotten how many verses there are so maybe I didn't! Wonderful to read it again and I recognised every wonderful line in each great verse. How I loved this poem as a teenager, it really brought a "pang" to my heart!
Although I haven't contributed much recently I have really been enjoying this revived thread. Many beautiful poems new to me and I've taken so much time reading and trying to understand them I haven't got round to writing! Thanks to all for the wonderful contributions.
Nerine
Although I haven't contributed much recently I have really been enjoying this revived thread. Many beautiful poems new to me and I've taken so much time reading and trying to understand them I haven't got round to writing! Thanks to all for the wonderful contributions.
Nerine
scampo
Steve Campsall
Thanks for posting those, Dean. Poor old John Clare - he was a marvellous nature poet but he suffered so very much in life.Dean Powell said:
Song
I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,
And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.
My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids—
The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.
I looked on the eyes of fair woman too long,
Till silence and shame stole the use of my tongue:
When I tried to speak to her I'd nothing to say,
So I turned myself round and she wandered away.
When she got too far off, why, I'd something to tell,
So I sent sighs behind her and walked to my cell.
Willow switches I broke and peeled bits of straws,
Ever lonely in crowds, in Nature's own laws—
My ball room the pasture, my music the bees,
My drink was the fountain, my church the tall trees.
Who ever would love or be tied to a wife
When it makes a man mad all the days of his life?
John Clare
Thanks also Dean, for the John Clare.His dialect usage is a delight.
One of the joys of this thread is to follow the leads provided. I am not as familiar as Steve is with John Clare-and have just read of his fate which puts his love of the countryside & open air in such a tragic light.
I found this very moving-particularly the last three lines:-
Written in Northampton County Asylum
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss’d
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
John Clare
_______________________________
Colin
One of the joys of this thread is to follow the leads provided. I am not as familiar as Steve is with John Clare-and have just read of his fate which puts his love of the countryside & open air in such a tragic light.
I found this very moving-particularly the last three lines:-
Written in Northampton County Asylum
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss’d
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
John Clare
_______________________________
Colin
Last edited:
scampo
Steve Campsall
Clare led such a sad life - time to be cheered up, maybe!
The Dinkey Bird
In an ocean, ‘way out yonder,
(As all sapient people know)
Is the land of Wonder-Wander,
Whither children love to go;
It’s their playing, romping, swinging,
That give great joy to me
While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing
In the amfalula tree!
There the gum-drops grow like cherries,
And taffy’s thick as peas―
Caramels you pick like berries
When, and where, and how you please;
Big red sugar-plums are clinging
To the cliffs beside that sea
Where the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree!
So when children shout and scamper
And make merry all the day,
When there’s naught to put a damper
To the ardour of their play;
When I hear their laughter ringing,
Then I’m sure as sure can be
That the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree!
For the Dinkey-Bird’s bravuras
And staccatos are so sweet—
His roulades, appoggiaturas,
And robustos so complete,
That the youth of every nation—
Be they near or far away—
Have especial delectation
In that gladsome roundelay.
Their eyes grow bright and brighter,
Their lungs begin to crow,
Their hearts get light and lighter,
And their cheeks are all aglow;
For an echo cometh bringing
The news to all and me,
That the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree.
Eugene Field
The Dinkey Bird
In an ocean, ‘way out yonder,
(As all sapient people know)
Is the land of Wonder-Wander,
Whither children love to go;
It’s their playing, romping, swinging,
That give great joy to me
While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing
In the amfalula tree!
There the gum-drops grow like cherries,
And taffy’s thick as peas―
Caramels you pick like berries
When, and where, and how you please;
Big red sugar-plums are clinging
To the cliffs beside that sea
Where the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree!
So when children shout and scamper
And make merry all the day,
When there’s naught to put a damper
To the ardour of their play;
When I hear their laughter ringing,
Then I’m sure as sure can be
That the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree!
For the Dinkey-Bird’s bravuras
And staccatos are so sweet—
His roulades, appoggiaturas,
And robustos so complete,
That the youth of every nation—
Be they near or far away—
Have especial delectation
In that gladsome roundelay.
Their eyes grow bright and brighter,
Their lungs begin to crow,
Their hearts get light and lighter,
And their cheeks are all aglow;
For an echo cometh bringing
The news to all and me,
That the Dinkey-Bird is singing
In the amfalula tree.
Eugene Field
Last edited:
scampo
Steve Campsall
Isn't it! And, of course, I'd forgotten this one has a bird in it...Tyke said:
Jaberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll
christineredgate
Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th
I cannot believe this thread is still running,thanks,Tanny for bringing it back to life,and also to Steve(Scampo),for really keeping it running.Dean,glad you posted the poems,welcome,(I have not forgotten your Norman Nicholson books,-Sat),and Bascar,a very warm welcome to you and many thanks for your "Ode to a Nightingale",yes,a very obvious choice.
Mickymouse
Ubuntu Linux user
I particularly like John Clare so I shall be looking up some more of his, there must be something wrong with me but I prefer sad or melancholy poetry to the happy stuff and I am not a miserable bloke.
Mick
Mick
Christine, you are to be congratulated on starting this tremendous thread and for keeping such a keen eye on its progression three years on.
Nerine, like you, I learned the Ode to a Nightingale at school and it has remained a firm favourite during the ensuing 45 years. Give me half an hour's refresher, and I can quote it still! I am pleased it brought back memories for you.
It is good to see so many Yeats poems included. But there are others from this master of verse that are relevant to this thread, including at least two that are amongst his greatest. Although the references to birds are brief in At Algeciras and Sailing to Byzantium are brief, I hope I may be forgiven for including them in full for they are just such wonderful poems.
Leda and the Swan (from The Tower)
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Sailing to Byzantium (from The Tower)
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
At Algeciras – a Meditation upon Death (from The Winding Stair)
The heron-billed pale cattle-birds
That feed on some foul parasite
Of the Moroccan flocks and herds
Cross the narrow Straits to light
In the rich midnight of the garden trees
Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas.
Often at evening when a boy
Would I carry to a friend --
Hoping more substantial joy
Did an older mind commend --
Not such as are in Newton's metaphor,
But actual shells of Rosses' level shore.
Greater glory in the Sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on the Great Questioner;
What He can question, what if questioned I
Can with a fitting confidence reply.
The Hawk (from The Wild Swans at Coole)
'Call down the hawk from the air;
Let him be hooded or caged
Till the yellow eye has grown mild,
For larder and spit are bare,
The old cook enraged,
The scullion gone wild.'
'I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.'
'What tumbling cloud did you cleave,
Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,
Last evening? that I, who had sat
Dumbfounded before a knave,
Should give to my friend
A pretence of wit.'
Nerine, like you, I learned the Ode to a Nightingale at school and it has remained a firm favourite during the ensuing 45 years. Give me half an hour's refresher, and I can quote it still! I am pleased it brought back memories for you.
It is good to see so many Yeats poems included. But there are others from this master of verse that are relevant to this thread, including at least two that are amongst his greatest. Although the references to birds are brief in At Algeciras and Sailing to Byzantium are brief, I hope I may be forgiven for including them in full for they are just such wonderful poems.
Leda and the Swan (from The Tower)
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Sailing to Byzantium (from The Tower)
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
At Algeciras – a Meditation upon Death (from The Winding Stair)
The heron-billed pale cattle-birds
That feed on some foul parasite
Of the Moroccan flocks and herds
Cross the narrow Straits to light
In the rich midnight of the garden trees
Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas.
Often at evening when a boy
Would I carry to a friend --
Hoping more substantial joy
Did an older mind commend --
Not such as are in Newton's metaphor,
But actual shells of Rosses' level shore.
Greater glory in the Sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on the Great Questioner;
What He can question, what if questioned I
Can with a fitting confidence reply.
The Hawk (from The Wild Swans at Coole)
'Call down the hawk from the air;
Let him be hooded or caged
Till the yellow eye has grown mild,
For larder and spit are bare,
The old cook enraged,
The scullion gone wild.'
'I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.'
'What tumbling cloud did you cleave,
Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,
Last evening? that I, who had sat
Dumbfounded before a knave,
Should give to my friend
A pretence of wit.'
scampo
Steve Campsall
Me, too, Mick. The same applies to music. In fact there was a brilliant programme on Channel 4 TV the other evening called "How Music Works", rather well presented by Howard Goodall. He explained how a certain type of music produces wistful and nostalgic feelings - that's my sort of music. The Strawbs' music easily falls into this category, I reckon and I know we both like that.Mickymouse said:
If you missed the show, the second of the series is on next week. Here's the show's web site:
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/H/how_music_works/index.html
Talking of "sad" poems, how do you like this one? It's by a poet who usually writes on the lighter side - a close friend of his became ill and inspired the poem. I find it deeply moving. I hope others here will enjoy it too. It's surely beautiful.
Defying Gravity
Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Let go of the book and it abseils to the ground
As if, at the centre of the earth, spins a giant yo-yo
To which everything is attached by an invisible string.
Tear out a page of the book and make an aeroplane.
Launch it. For an instant it seems that you have fashioned
A shape that can outwit air, that has slipped the knot.
But no. The earth turns, the winch tightens, it is wound in.
One of my closest friends is, at the time of writing,
Attempting to defy gravity, and will surely succeed.
Eighteen months ago he was playing rugby,
Now, seven stones lighter, his wife carries him aw-
Kwardly from room to room. Arranges him gently
Upon the sofa for the visitors. ‘How are things?’
Asks one, not wanting to know. Pause. ‘Not too bad.’
(Open brackets. Condition inoperable. Close brackets.)
Soon now, the man that I love (not the armful of bones)
Will defy gravity. Freeing himself from the tackle
He will sidestep the opposition and streak down the wing
Towards a dimension as yet unimagined.
Back where the strings are attached there will be a service
And homage paid to the giant yo-yo. A box of left-overs
Will be lowered into a space on loan from the clay.
Then, weighted down, the living will walk wearily away.
Roger McGough
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