Birds and poetry (1 Viewer)

[Bascar]

On the theme of asylum seekers, how about this poem from Seamus Heaney? It is based on the legend of the 6th century Irish saint, St Kevin of Glendalough in County Wicklow. St Kevin was a noted nature lover who, according to the legend, one year spent the greater part of Lent immobile with arm outstretched playing host to a blackbird and her eggs. It contains some wonderful imagery.


St Kevin and the Blackbird
Seamus Heaney

And then there was St. Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: Now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
*
And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird,
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.

 

[Tyke]

Hi Dean -the Yellowhammer poems were wonderful. Those old country names would be lost if it wasn't for poems like these.
Dialect is such an important component of local culture. Once you begin to lose the one you soon lose the other.

This is a Yorkshire dialect poem:-

Fieldfares

Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, feedin' 'mang the bent,
Wheer the sun is shinin' through yon cloud's wide rent,
Welcoom back to t' moorlands,
Frae Norway's fells an' shorelands,
Welcoom back to Whardill,(1) now October's ommost spent.

Noisy, chackin' fieldfares, weel I ken your cry,
When i' flocks you're sweepin' ower the hills sae high:
Oft on trees you gethers,
Preenin' out your feathers,
An' I'm fain to see your coats as blue as t' summer sky.

Curlews, larks an' tewits,(2) all have gone frae t' moors,
Frost has nipped i' t' garden all my bonny floors;
Roses, lilies, pansies,
Stocks an' yallow tansies
Fade away, an' soon the leaves 'll clutter(3) doon i' shoors.

Here i' bed I'm liggin', liggin' day by day
Hay-cart whemmled ower,(4) and underneath I lay;
I was nobbut seven,
Soon I'll be eleven;
Fower times have I seen you fieldfares coom an' flee away.

You'll be gone when t' swallow bigs his nest o' loam,
April winds 'll blaw you far ower t' saut sea foam;
You'll not wait while May-time,
Summer dews an' hay-time;
Lang afore our gerse is mawn your mates 'll call you home.

Fieldfares, liltin'(5) fieldfares, you'll noan sing to me.
Why sud you bide silent while you've crossed the sea?
Are you brokken-hearted,
Sin frae home you've parted,
Leavin' far frae Yorkshire moors your nests i' t' tall fir tree?

Storm-cock sings at new-yeer, swingin' on yon esh,
Sings his loudest song when t' winds do beat an' lesh;
Robins, throstles follow,
An' when cooms the swalloww,
All the birds 'll chirm to see our woodlands green an' nesh.

Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, I'll be gone 'fore you;
I'm sae weak an' dowly, hands are thin an' blue.
Pain is growin' stranger,
As the neets get langer.
Will you miss my face at whiles, when t' owd yeer's changed to t' new?

FW Moorman (1872-1919)

1. Warfdale 2. Peewits 3.Huddle
4. Upset 5. Light-hearted

The Asylum Seekers was very good Merlin-& 40 Love very thoughtful Steve!

Colin

 

[Nerine]

Colin, going back a bit, sorry! If I have to choose my favourite from Keats' Nightingale and Clare's Skylark it will be ....Keats. John Clare’s Skylark is a fine poem but Keats' is so deeply beautiful and sensuous I just have to go for that one! He wrote it around the time his brother, Tom, was dying from tuberculosis. A nightingale had built its nest in a plum tree and it was while he sat under this tree, after breakfast one day, that he was inspired to write this poem.

Steve – interesting story of Shelley. Love Byron’s Darkness , very atmospheric and of course I have always loved Ode to the West Wind, a favourite of mine. Byron, Keats and Shelley of the Romantic era make fascinating reading. Of course Byron was another who died young - all so tragic!

Lots more good poetry here to read, thanks everybody.

Nerine

 

[scampo]

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

Thanks, Mick - it's an interesting poem!

 

[scampo]

...

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

I'm pleased to see that the yellow hammer seems to be enjoying the set aside these days up in this part of the world. I'm sure that I see more these days than ten years ago. Mind you, twenty years ago, they were a commonplace in certain areas. I suspect it has something to do with winter food supplies.

I, too, would just love to see the rural England of those days, Dean. In fact, to take a walk with Hardy or Clare would be a joy indeed - both very different people, though!

 

[Tyke]

Colin, going back a bit, sorry! If I have to choose my favourite from Keats' Nightingale and Clare's Skylark it will be ....Keats. John Clare’s Skylark is a fine poem but Keats' is so deeply beautiful and sensuous I just have to go for that one! He wrote it around the time his brother, Tom, was dying from tuberculosis. A nightingale had built its nest in a plum tree and it was while he sat under this tree, after breakfast one day, that he was inspired to write this poem.

Steve – interesting story of Shelley. Love Byron’s Darkness , very atmospheric and of course I have always loved Ode to the West Wind, a favourite of mine. Byron, Keats and Shelley of the Romantic era make fascinating reading. Of course Byron was another who died young - all so tragic!

Lots more good poetry here to read, thanks everybody.

Nerine

Nerine-no wonder I confused you-getting my Skylarks & Nightingales mixed up! Stupid of me-apologies.
I must confess I can read the John Clare inwardly with more pleasure & meaning. For me he seems somehow closer to the reality of the countryside-you can almost smell "the russet clods".
Keats' Nightingale is a beautiful poem-and the background you provided adds poignancy. It's just that it seems less "natural" than Clare-more highbrow perhaps- Laurence Oliver in full flow to Clare's Richard Burton perhaps?
I don't know how else to explain it & no doubt ones own background is a factor too.

Yes lots of great poems indeed

Colin

 

[scampo]

Colin,

I don't know whether I have posted it before - maybe not as it's quite a long poem - but your comments about how Clare gets to the very essence of nature apply so very much to his poem, "The Nightingale's Nest". I think it's one of his best. I suspect you'll agree. I hope others enjoy it, too, despite its length.


The Nightingale's Nest

Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove,
And list the nightingale - she dwells just here.
Hush ! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love ;
For here I’ve heard her many a merry year -
At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where that old-man’s-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o’er the road, and stops the way -
And where that child its blue-bell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails -
There have I hunted like a very boy,
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn
To find her nest, and see her feed her young.
And vainly did I many hours employ :
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn.
And where those crimping fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel’s under boughs, I’ve nestled down,
And watched her while she sung ; and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown.
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,
And feathers stand on end, as ’twere with joy,
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part
Of summer’s fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancies shapen her employ ;
But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,
All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain :
The timid bird had left the hazel bush,
And at a distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs ;
For while of half the year Care him bereaves,
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast ;
The nightingale to summer’s life belongs,
And naked trees, and winter’s nipping wrongs,
Are strangers to her music and her rest.
Her joys are evergreen, her world is wide -
Hark! there she is as usual - let’s be hush -
For in this black-thorn clump, if rightly guest,
Her curious house is hidden. Part aside
These hazel branches in a gentle way,
And stoop right cautious ’neath the rustling boughs,
For we will have another search to day,
And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round ;
And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows,
We’ll wade right through, it is a likely nook :
In such like spots, and often on the ground,
They’ll build, where rude boys never think to look -
Aye, as I live ! her secret nest is here,
Upon this white-thorn stump ! I’ve searched about
For hours in vain. There! put that bramble by -
Nay, trample on its branches and get near.
How subtle is the bird ! she started out,
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh,
Ere we were past the brambles ; and now, near
Her nest, she sudden stops - as choking fear,
That might betray her home. So even now
We’ll leave it as we found it : safety’s guard
Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still.
See there! she’s sitting on the old oak bough,
Mute in her fears ; our presence doth retard
Her joys, and doubt turns every rapture chill.
Sing on, sweet bird! may no worse hap befall
Thy visions, than the fear that now deceives.
We will not plunder music of its dower,
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall ;
For melody seems hid in every flower,
That blossoms near thy home. These harebells all
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song ;
And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard.
How curious is the nest ; no other bird
Uses such loose materials, or weaves
Its dwelling in such spots : dead oaken leaves
Are placed without, and velvet moss within,
And little scraps of grass, and, scant and spare,
What scarcely seem materials, down and hair ;
For from men’s haunts she nothing seems to win.
Yet Nature is the builder, and contrives
Homes for her children’s comfort, even here ;
Where Solitude’s disciples spend their lives
Unseen, save when a wanderer passes near
That loves such pleasant places. Deep adown,
The nest is made a hermit’s mossy cell.
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five,
Of deadened green, or rather olive brown ;
And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.
So here we’ll leave them, still unknown to wrong,
As the old woodland’s legacy of song.

John Clare


These lines seem very special:

"See there! she’s sitting on the old oak bough..."

"So here we'll leave them...". Wonderful.

 

[Tyke]

Thank you Steve.
A wonderful poem-a veritable Guide to the breeding habits of the Nightingale!
Pure first hand observation-more of a "story for boys".( sorry ladies!!)
It took me back to reading "Bevis" by Richard Jefferies-another account of a vanished childhood.

Yes the lines you chose seem typically Clare. I would add...."winter's nipping wrongs" -brilliant.

Colin

 

[Nerine]

Nerine-no wonder I confused you-getting my Skylarks & Nightingales mixed up! Stupid of me-apologies.
I must confess I can read the John Clare inwardly with more pleasure & meaning. For me he seems somehow closer to the reality of the countryside-you can almost smell "the russet clods".
Keats' Nightingale is a beautiful poem-and the background you provided adds poignancy. It's just that it seems less "natural" than Clare-more highbrow perhaps- Laurence Oliver in full flow to Clare's Richard Burton perhaps?
I don't know how else to explain it & no doubt ones own background is a factor too.

Yes lots of great poems indeed

Colin

Hi Colin, I think probably it's because I learnt the Keats poem at school at an impressionable age. This has helped me to remember it with enormous pleasure today! It is a little mysterious but I think you have to know about what was going on in Keats' life at the time to appreciate why he mentions some of the things he does.
I don't remember the John Clare Skylark and reading it on here, I think, was the first time for me but you're right, wonderful descriptions.

Oh and I loved Richard Burton!!

Nerine

 

[christineredgate]

these poems are amazing.Love the Blackbird poem.Cannot believe how many people are still contributing to this thread.Thanks Steve,love the "Skylarks Nest".One can envisage the bird and its nest.Very good.

 

[Tyke]

There was a challenge a while ago to write a poem on Redwings.
I had a go:-

REDWINGS

Nomads of the night all fleeting,
what urgent mission brings you creeping
through the winter fields all sleeping?
Faces pale, all furtive, peeping,
pressing onward, searching, seeking.
Into the storm all lemming leaping,
splashed with gore, your flanks all bleeding,
commanded by an ancient bidding.


...and for something different:-


BLUE TIT

Does it upset you
when people say
"It's only a blue tit"
then walk away?


Colin

 

[Helenelizabeth2]

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

Thanks for the jpg - I don't have Word on this computer and couldn't see the formatting before.

Very clever, funny and also sad.

 

[Helenelizabeth2]

Because I haven't been following the thread for long I don't know if we've already had Kathleen Jamie but just in case:

The Dipper

It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.

It lit on a damp rock,
and as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.

It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.

And on a completely unconnected subject I used to read this one on tube trains in the days of Poems on the Underground and I always liked it:

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fall,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Sheenagh Pugh

 

[christineredgate]

thanks,Helen,a lovely poem.Colin also a big thankyou.Yes re the Bluetit,does everyone not get a little miffed when someone says "Anything decent around today"!!!.One is surrounded by Waders,Gulls,chatty Blackbirds,cheeky Starlings,but always someone is looking for for that something extra and rare etc.But this merits its own thread,which has been discussed over and over again.
thanks again,Colin for the poems.

 

[scampo]

What fine poems - "it's only a blue tit"... lovely, and the dipper, "it isn't mine to give". Here's a sombre poem from Philip Larkin that has always appealed. I was lucky to have a happy childhood, yet still I can relate to what Larkin writes:

Coming

On longer evenings,
Light, still and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon -
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.

Philip Larkin

 

[Tyke]

Helen two lovely poems-I particularly liked "Sometimes"
Christine & Steve thank you.

Steve what an absolutely wonderful poem from Larkin.

Colin

 

[Helenelizabeth2]

I really like that one - reminds me that I've always meant to read some more Larkin - can you recommend a collection that I can put on my Xmas list?

I taught this one to my kids from an early age - I figure the lower their expectations of me the better!

This be the verse

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

 

[scampo]

Helen two lovely poems-I particularly liked "Sometimes"
Christine & Steve thank you.

Steve what an absolutely wonderful poem from Larkin.

Colin

He is an astonishingly good poet, Colin. I can't praise his work enough. This poem has such compactness it is wonderful. He works with language so carefully and yet makes it appear so conversational. Here's another of his that is the equal of Coming. This Be the Verse is one I use at school to capture my students to Larkin - they invariably are a little shocked but also moved by the way the poet captures some truths about life.


Afternoons

Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
In the hollows of afternoons
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.

Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places

That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acorns,
Expect to be taken home.
Their beauty has thickened.
Something is pushing them
To the side of their own lives.

Philip Larkin

And how about this little stunner?


Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin

 

[Tyke]

Yes "This be The Verse" is everyone's Larkin Helen!-a classic.

Steve -I agree -he seems to pare his words right down-there is nothing superfluous.Liked "Days" particularly-have just found an e- book on the Net with 150 plus poems by Larkin-a lot to catch up on!!

With apologies may I get this off my chest-at least it complies with the thread!-was watching Fieldfares in the Brede Valley near my home last week :-

FIELDFARES

On the North Wind's waking breath
They come,
Drifting like the summer's dying leaves
In the moiling air.
Easing down to the majestic trees
Who wait in ragged shame,
To cede their noble heads
In deference.

Languidly in livery of grey and bronze
They claim the heights
Of oak and beech.
Chattering knowingly.
Heads high, this elegant elite
In clacking tongue,
Declaim across the valley
That winter comes.


Colin

 

[Nerine]

Colin, two lovely poems, Redwing and Bluetit, thanks.

Helen, I loved The Dipper, and Steve, Philip Larkin's Coming is superb.

Here's one I like, about nature with an air of mystery by Rudyard Kipling:

The Way through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods

Rudyard Kipling

and here's a lullaby by the same poet. I think it's gorgeous.

Seal Lullaby

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

Rudyard Kipling

Nerine