BIRDS

The Swift (Apus apus)

As many of you know I am a stamp collector and often resort to the fusion of this hobby with poetry.

In the world of stamps, the subject of birds is one of the most popular themes, and in fact some collectors prefer to focus on such a theme rather than concentrate on a particular country.

 In the poetry world, Birds have constantly been a source of inspiration – who cannot be moved by the opening words of “The Lark Ascending” by George Meredith?  And the words of this poem certainly inspired Ralph Vaugh Williams to write a piece of music of the same name.

George Meredith opens with:

“He rises and begins to round,  He drops the silver chain of sound

Of many links without a break,  In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,”

Or, perhaps Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to a Skylark” may equally inspire, with the opening verse of his poem.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert-

That from heaven or near it

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Royal Mail have issued many stamps over the past 50 years or so, with birds as the theme, but it was the most recent issue of 7 April this year that prompted me to search for some appropriate poetry. The issue includes images of 10 migratory birds, so celebrating some of the beautiful birds that flock to the UK shores each year.

 The three poems I have selected are: “Nightjar” by Sir Henry Newbolt, “On Seeing Two Swallows Late in October” by John Clare, and “Swifts” by Anne Stevenson.

Sir Henry Newbolt (6 June 1862 -19 April 1938) was an English poet, novelist, and historian. He was also a government adviser on the study of the English language. He is perhaps best known for poems such as “Drake’s Drum”, so this is a big step away from that style,

In it, he recalls a moment finding an apparently dying nightjar and then trying to resuscitate it.  So there was a moment of hope, a moment when love and compassion were expended, a moment of companionship between man and bird…but it was all to no avail. His description of the nightjar’s wings is evocative and beautiful.

Nightjar by Sir Henry Newbolt

We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us.  

 We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm,  

 Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall.  

 Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire, 

Fed her, and thought she well might live – till suddenly  

 I the very moment of most confiding hope  

 She arised herself all tense, qivered and drooped and died.  

 Tears sprang into my eyes- why not? The heart of man  

 Soon sets itself to love a living companion,  

 The more so if by chance it asks some care of him.  

 And this one had the kind of loveliness that goes  

 Far deeper than the optic nerve- full fathom five  

 To the soul’s ocean cave, where Wonder and Reason  

 Tell their alternate dreams of how the world was made.  

 So wonderful she was - her wings the wings of night  

 But powdered here and therewith tiny golden clouds  

 And wave-line markings like sea-ripples on the sand.  

 O how I wish I might never forget that bird-  

 Never!  

But even now, like all beauty of earth,  

She is fading from me into the dusk of Time. 

John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was one of the Romantic poets who came from a humble farming background. He sadly suffered from depression and spent the last 20 years of his life in Northampton General Lunatic Asylum where under the sensitive direction of Dr Thomas Octavius Prichard he was encouraged to continue writing poetry.

He was described by Jonathan Bate, his biographer as “the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self."

In his poem about swallows, he seems very concerned for their welfare especially as it becomes colder. Perhaps he was even concerned that this pair of swallows might not follow the normal migration pattern and make it to warmer climes for breeding.

On Seeing Two Swallows Late in October by John Clare

But, little lingerers, old esteem detains

Ye haply thus to brave the chilly air

When skies grow dull with winter's heavy rains

And all the orchard trees are nearly bare;

Yet the old chimneys still are peeping there

Above the russet thatch where summer's tide

Of sunny joys gave you such social fare

As makes you haply wishing to abide

In your old dwelling through the changing year.

I wish ye well to find a dwelling here,

For in the unsocial weather ye would fling

  Gleanings of comfort through the winter wide,

  Twittering as wont above the old fireside,

And cheat the surly winter into spring.

Anne Stevenson (3 January 1933 – 14 September 2020) was a British-American poet, author, and essayist who thought she might become a professional musician, until she started to lose her hearing in her late teens. So, she turned to poetry. She was the author of many volumes of poetry.   Stevenson used a hearing aid and several of her poems refer to her experience of deafness.

In this poem she shows her appreciation of the little birds, especially in the way she catches the spirit of the swifts and the joy with which we greet their arrival and the return of spring.

Swifts by Anne Stevenson

Spring comes little, a little. All April it rains.

The new leaves stick in their fists; new ferns still fiddleheads.

But one day the swifts are back. Face to the sun like a child

You shout, 'The swifts are back!'

Sure enough, bolt nocks bow to carry one sky-scyther

Two hundred miles an hour across fullblown windfields.

Swereee swereee. Another. And another.

It's the cut air falling in shrieks on our chimneys and roofs.

The next day, a fleet of high crosses cruises in ether.

These are the air pilgrims, pilots of air rivers.

But a shift of wing, and they're earth-skimmers, daggers

Skilful in guiding the throw of themselves away from themselves.

Quick flutter, a scimitar upsweep, out of danger of touch, for

Earth is forbidden to them, water's forbidden to them,

All air and fire, little owlish ascetics, they outfly storms,

They rush to the pillars of altitude, the thermal fountains.

Here is a legend of swifts, a parable —

When the Great Raven bent over earth to create the birds,

The swifts were ungrateful. They were small muddy things

Like shoes, with long legs and short wings,

So they took themselves off to the mountains to sulk.

And they stayed there. 'Well,' said the Raven, after years of this,

'I will give you the sky. You can have the whole sky

On condition that you give up rest.'

'Yes, yes,' screamed the swifts, 'We abhor rest.

We detest the filth of growth, the sweat of sleep,

Soft nests in the wet fields, slimehold of worms.

Let us be free, be air!'

So the Raven took their legs and bound them into their bodies.

He bent their wings like boomerangs, honed them like knives.

He streamlined their feathers and stripped them of velvet.

Then he released them, Never to Return

Inscribed on their feet and wings. And so

We have swifts, though in reality, not parables but

Bolts in the world's need: swift

Swifts, not in punishment, not in ecstasy, simply

Sleepers over oceans in the mill of the world's breathing.

The grace to say they live in another firmament.

A way to say the miracle will not occur,

And watch the miracle.

I have just offered a few thoughts about these poems but as with all poetry, and indeed art, you may interpret differently. You may simply say I enjoyed reading that!

Submitted by Roger Verrall – 4 May 2022

SOURCES

• ROYAL MAIL Publication “first”, Migratory Birds Thursday 7 April 2022
• Allpoetry.com
• The New Oxford Book of English Verse, Ed Helen Gardner, OUP, Oxford 1972- Reprinted 1987
• thereader.org.uk
• poetryfoundation.com