Birds and poetry (2 Viewers)

[Tyke]

Mick-I'm sure there's nothing wrong with you. Is it something to do with the expression of powerful emotions ?-these can often be melancholy.
I have also been reading John Clare now.
I wonder which evocation of Alauda arvensis you prefer-Keats or this?

The Skylark

The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide
Above the russet clods, the corn is seen
Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,
Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.
Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize -
Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies,
And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings
Winnows the air, till in the cloud she sings,
Then hangs a dust-spot in the sunny skies,
And drops, and drops, till in her nest she lies,
Which they unheeded passed - not dreaming then
That birds which flew so high would drop agen
To nests upon the ground, which anything
May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud,
And build on nothing but a passing cloud!
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil, there would they build and be,
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen - Oh, were they but a bird!
So think they, while they listen to its song,
And smile and fancy and so pass along;
While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.

John Clare

Bascar-thank you for the Yeats-astounding

Steve-thanks for that haunting Roger McGough. He is usually so zany.

...like a great favourite of mine:-

THE BIRDS

Puccini was Latin, and Wagner Teutonic,
And the birds are incurably philharmonic.
The skylark sings a roundelay,
The crow sings " The Road to Mandalay",
The nightingale sings a lullaby
And the sea gull sings a gullaby.
That's what shepherds listened to in Arcadia
Before some one invented TV's and radia.

Ogden Nash


______________________________________

Colin

 

[Mickymouse]

Definitely prefer the John Clare by a wide margin, the Roger McGough was very moving too.
Saw the Howard Goodall program, excellent but then I like anything with him in it.
Steve earlier on in the thread you mentioned Larkrise to Candlford have you ever heard the Albion Bands version of it? Worth a listen.

Mick

 

[christineredgate]

thanks,Colin,love "The Birds" by Ogden Nash,very good.

 

[Upland Birder]

Coots, not Keats, Shakespeare Snippets and The Woodcock

Hi Tanny,

I have also searched my many books about birds but have so far found no poem on the Redwing. I will take up your challenge and write my own poem about this bird. I intend to head off to a suitable habitat such as RSPB Coombes Valley and write it (a place of peace and woodland birdsong). I will post it as soon as I have written it.

In the meantime here is a verse about the Coot a bird of water:

I come from haunts of Coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

Tennyson, 'The brook'

And here's a few snippets from Shakespeare's plays:

Far from her nest, the lapwing cries away:
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse'
(The Comedy of Errors, Act 4, Scene 2)

This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head [says Horatio about Osric]
(Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2)

O this woodcock! What an ass it is!
(The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Scene 2)

And finally some lines by John Gay (1685-1732)

He sung where Woodcocks in the summer feed,
And in what Climates they renew their Breed;
Some think to Northern Coasts their Flight they tend
Or, to the Moon in Midnight Hours ascend.

(John Gay, 'The Shepherd's Week: Saturday or The Flights).

In John Gay's day people believed that Woodcocks were among a number of birds that went to the moon in Autumn.

All my best wishes to all of you out there who have a love of literature and poetry in relation to birds.

I think we should write, present some of our own poems and put the collection in a book to be published.

I shall start my poem this weekend once the creative juices are flowing.

See you soon.

Oh and thanks to Christine, Tanny, Scampo and co.

Dean

 

[Tyke]

Definitely prefer the John Clare by a wide margin,

Mick

And me Mick.
Colin

 

[scampo]

Definitely prefer the John Clare by a wide margin, the Roger McGough was very moving too.
Saw the Howard Goodall program, excellent but then I like anything with him in it.
Steve earlier on in the thread you mentioned Larkrise to Candlford have you ever heard the Albion Bands version of it? Worth a listen.

Mick

Hi Mick - no, I haven't. In fact, if I say I haven't heard of Albion Band does that make me uncool? Who are they?

 

[scampo]

...
I shall start my poem this weekend once the creative juices are flowing.

See you soon.

Oh and thanks to Christine, Tanny, Scampo and co.

Dean

We're all looking forward to it, I'm sure, Dean. Your comment on the woodcock was interesting indeed. If I recall, people used to think the swallow lived under the sea during the winter, and there's some story about the kingfisher I can't remember.

 

[Nerine]

I wonder which evocation of Alauda arvensis you prefer-Keats or this?

Colin

Hey Colin, are you referring to Shelley's skylark which starts:
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! ? Or have I got it wrong? If you are then I prefer the John Clare. I don't think Keats wrote about skylarks?

Thinking of Shelley I looked him up, so many of that era died so young. Shelley drowned sailing at sea aged 29. Keats died aged only 25 from tuberculosis. Anyway I rather like this one by Shelley, it's desperately sad as so many poems of this era seem to be:

(I think this is just called SONG).

Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not her.

Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;--
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.

I love snow and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hope some of you reading this may like it too and thanks for some great poetry on this thread.

Nerine

 

[scampo]

Hey Colin, are you referring to Shelley's skylark which starts:
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! ? Or have I got it wrong? If you are then I prefer the John Clare. I don't think Keats wrote about skylarks?

Thinking of Shelley I looked him up, so many of that era died so young. Shelley drowned sailing at sea aged 29. Keats died aged only 25 from tuberculosis. Anyway I rather like this one by Shelley, it's desperately sad as so many poems of this era seem to be:

(I think this is just called SONG).

Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hope some of you reading this may like it too and thanks for some great poetry on this thread.

Nerine

Thanks for reminding us all how great a poet Shelley is, Nerine. A close friend of mine, a keen birder for very many years, adores him and has since he first came across him at university.

I like the story of Shelley who was on holiday in Switzerland with his friend, George Gordon (Lord Byron) and his sister, Mary. It was a year that had witnessed a terrible volcanic eruption, the ash from which had blotted out the sun and led to "a year without summer". Apparently they were sheltering one cold and stormy night and set themselves a contest each to tell a horror story and, out of that, eventually came Byron's "Darkness" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein".

This is "Darkness". It's a wonderful and chilling vision...


Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went – and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires – and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings – the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d,
And men were gather’d round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
Forests were set on fire – but hour by hour
They fell and faded – and the crackling trunks
Extinguish’d with a crash – and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d
And twin’d themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless – they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought – and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails – men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour’d,
Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer’d not with a caress – he died.
The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak’d up,
And shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other’s aspects – saw, and shriek’d, and died –
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless –
A lump of death – a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d
They slept on the abyss without a surge –
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before;
The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them – She was the Universe.

Lord Byron

 

[Tyke]

Hey Colin, are you referring to Shelley's skylark which starts:
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! ? Or have I got it wrong? If you are then I prefer the John Clare. I don't think Keats wrote about skylarks?



Nerine

Hi Nerine-I was referring to Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats-posted by Bascar at#689

Thanks for the Shelley.

Steve-what a powerful poem from Byron...and what another interesting by-way it takes one down!.
The volcano was Tambora in Indonesia which erupted in 1815. This eruption altered global weather patterns for four years, causing famine, plagues & the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The spectacular sunsets were painted by Turner, and are thought to have inspired Keats' "To Autumn" (1819)-in addition as you said to giving rise to " Frankenstein"

Colin

 

[Helenelizabeth2]

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.

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

It was a great programme, wasn't it? I've always wondered what the underlying links were between music that appeals and music that sticks in your head etc. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

This is a great poem, isn't it? And the John Clare asylum one above. I also find the sad ones much more powerful. Happy poems often sound so trite - shame.

 

[scampo]

Steve-what a powerful poem from Byron...and what another interesting by-way it takes one down! The volcano was Tambora in Indonesia which erupted in 1815. This eruption altered global weather patterns for four years, causing famine, plagues & the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The spectacular sunsets were painted by Turner, and are thought to have inspired Keats' "To Autumn" (1819)-in addition as you said to giving rise to " Frankenstein"

Colin

I really enjoy finding these little tidbits, Colin - adds life to the poems. That must have been a fascinating time in which to live - but only for the rich, I'd say. Shelley wrote his amazing indictment to the king at this time, but, not surprisingly, it wasn't allowed to be published until after his death.


England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, —
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, —mud from a muddy spring, —
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, —
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, —
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, —
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless —a book sealed;
A Senate, – Time's worst statute unrepealed, —
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.


My favourite bar none of his poems, however, is "Ode to the West Wind" - here is the first part - just to whet the appetite (the rest can be found here).


Ode to the West Wind

I.

O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O, thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving every where;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O, hear!

... ... ...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

[scampo]

...Happy poems often sound so trite - shame.

Here's another by McGough - not of the quality of the amazing "Defying Gravity" but very clever. I can't post it here as it won't retain the necessary format for it to work! It's quite funny in a slightly poignant way - and not at all trite. Hope you enjoy it.

 

[christineredgate]

this thread really is a great learning curve.Thanks,Steve,for the "Tennis-love ",yes,very thought provoking.It took a little time to suss it out from the format.

 

[Merlin]

A poem with a difference

Hi Christine.
Great thread, this is slightly unconventional??


Asylum Seekers?

They come in their thousands, they come every year
They just turn up, no one invited them here
They come with no possessions, they come in at night
Why do they choose our country, what gives them the right?
They don’t speak our language, they don’t wear our clothes
They eat our food, they live in our homes
They are almost everywhere in the country, they are in every town
Even when you go shopping, there they are, watching you, looking down
Are they going home or just going away
Is this where they live or where they want to stay?
There now seems an urgency like never before
Time is running out as they gather to leave our shore
Why do they come, why do they go?
Is it just instinct we don’t really know
They are definitely going they are leaving here
I just hope my friends the swallows come back next year!
Are they African or European, should we really care?
They brighten are lives and belong up in the sky, up there!

regards
Merlin

UOTE=christineredgate]this thread really is a great learning curve.Thanks,Steve,for the "Tennis-love ",yes,very thought provoking.It took a little time to suss it out from the format.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mickymouse]

That 40 Love is very clever, it took me a while to figure it out too. Here it is as a Jpeg in case any one can't open it.
I liked the Asylum Seekers too.

Mick

 

[Stewart J.]

Enjoyed the Asylum Seekers Merlin, and thanks for 40 love jpeg Mick

Stewart

 

[Upland Birder]

The Yellowhammer, Grassland Bunting, Hardy and Clare

Hi Christine and all,

The Yellowhammer in Westmorland has a common name of Bessie blaceling and in Cumberland Bessie bunti. In different parts of the country this bird is known by different common names.

Here are a couple of poems about this bunting:


When towards the summer's close,
Lanes are dry,
And unclipt the hedgethorn rows,
There we fly!

While the harvest waggons pass
With their load,
Shedding corn upon the grass
By the road.

In a flock we follow them,
On and on,
Seize a wheat-ear by the stem,
And are gone...

With our funny little song,
Thus you may
Often see us flit along,
Day by Day.
(Thomas Hardy, 'The Yellowhammer')

John Clare also wrote about this bird


When shall I see the white thorn leaves agen
And Yellowhammers gath'ring the dry bents
By the Dyke side on stilly moor or fen
Feathered wi love and natures good intents
Rude is the nest this Architect invents
Rural the place wi cart ruts by dyke side
Dead grass, horse hair and downy headed bents
Tied to dead thistles she doth well provide
Close to a hill o' ants where cowslips bloom
And shed o'er meadows far their sweet perfume
In early spring when winds blow chilly cold
The yellowhammer trailing grass will come
To fix a place and choose an early home
With yellow breast and head of solid gold.

John Clare's poem was also called 'The Yellowhammer'


In Wales the Yellowhammer was considered to be a remedy for Jaundice. A Yellowhammer was held in front of the face of the afflicted.

Unfortunately the Yellowhammer once common in grassland areas, has significantly reduced in numbers in the last few years.

I would love to go back in time to the days of Hardy and Clare and see the countryside, its birds and human characters without them seeing me. It was a different world from that we have today.

Cheers Dean

 

[Upland Birder]

Jay or Nuthatch-Wrong ID? Beatrix Potter- a Question?

Did you know that John Clare once mistook a Jay for a Nuthatch. So the Nuthatch became immortalised in a poem he wrote called 'The Nuthatch':

In summer showers a skreeking noise is heard
Deep in the woods of some uncommon bird
It makes a loud and long and loud continued noise
And often stops the speed of men and boys
They think somebody mocks and goes along
And never thinks the nuthatch makes the song
Who always comes along the summer guest
The birdnest hunters never found the nest
The schoolboy hears the noise from day to day
And stoops among the thorns to find a way
And starts the jay bird from the bushes green
He looks and sees a nest he's never seen
And takes the spotted eggs with many joys
And thinks he found the bird that made the noise.

(John Clare, 'The Nuthatch')

I often see Jays and Nuthatches at RSPB Coombes Valley in the Staffordshire Moorlands. I have a visiting Nuthatch to the garden and it is great to watch as it wanders its way around the trunk of a very tall tree.

I want to finish the evening off with a few words about the Long Tailed tit a favourite bird I come across when walking in the Staffordhire Moorlands area of the Peak National park. Walking near Wetton a few weekends ago they were everywhere.

A long-tailed Tits nest may have inspired Beatrix Potter's 'Tommy Tittlemouse' but it could have been the nest of a real mouse?


I've heard that Tommy
Tittle-mouse
Lived in a tiny little house,
Thatched with a roof of rushes brown
and lined with hay and
Thistle-down.
Walled with woven grass and
moss,
Pegged down with willow
twiggs across.
Now wasn't that a charming house
For little Tommy
Tittle-mouse?

Beatrix Potter

In Cheshire the Long-tailed Tit was commonly known as the dog tail but my favourite is the Long-tailed Chittering as was commonly used in Norfolk and Hampshire.

This has been a long posting but I hope you all enjoy.

It is almost midnight
And time for flight
Before the dark of the night
Is light

Good night

Dean

 

[Merlin]

Hi Dean
Some great poems there and what an interesting thought to go back to Hardy's time and although Dorset is pretty good now, we can only imagine what it must have been like then. As an admirer of Hardy, his poetry tends to be overshadowed by his novels but he has some amazing poems not specifically about birds but about the countryside and its people.
Sadly John Clare is not too well known but as you have demonstrated has a many great poems to his credit and although his life was woeful, the fact you and we here on BF share his poems is the best any poet would hope for??
Merlin

Hi Christine and all,

The Yellowhammer in Westmorland has a common name of Bessie blaceling and in Cumberland Bessie bunti. In different parts of the country this bird is known by different common names.

Here are a couple of poems about this bunting:


When towards the summer's close,
Lanes are dry,
And unclipt the hedgethorn rows,
There we fly!

While the harvest waggons pass
With their load,
Shedding corn upon the grass
By the road.

In a flock we follow them,
On and on,
Seize a wheat-ear by the stem,
And are gone...

With our funny little song,
Thus you may
Often see us flit along,
Day by Day.
(Thomas Hardy, 'The Yellowhammer')

John Clare also wrote about this bird


When shall I see the white thorn leaves agen
And Yellowhammers gath'ring the dry bents
By the Dyke side on stilly moor or fen
Feathered wi love and natures good intents
Rude is the nest this Architect invents
Rural the place wi cart ruts by dyke side
Dead grass, horse hair and downy headed bents
Tied to dead thistles she doth well provide
Close to a hill o' ants where cowslips bloom
And shed o'er meadows far their sweet perfume
In early spring when winds blow chilly cold
The yellowhammer trailing grass will come
To fix a place and choose an early home
With yellow breast and head of solid gold.

John Clare's poem was also called 'The Yellowhammer'


In Wales the Yellowhammer was considered to be a remedy for Jaundice. A Yellowhammer was held in front of the face of the afflicted.

Unfortunately the Yellowhammer once common in grassland areas, has significantly reduced in numbers in the last few years.

I would love to go back in time to the days of Hardy and Clare and see the countryside, its birds and human characters without them seeing me. It was a different world from that we have today.

Cheers Dean