The Poetry of Birds E-Book

Samuel Carr

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 66

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A beautifully illustrated collection of famous poems written about birds to read and cherish as a source of comfort and joy. Poets have long looked to birds for inspiration and this anthology of 65 poems is an ode to the myriad of way that these creatures bring us joy and solace. The poets here represented are amongst the greatest who have ever lived, and their joint celebration of a common theme has resulted in an enchanting book. Amongst the poets whose work is included are Blake, Shakespeare and Wordsworth; Tennyson, Keats and Shelley; twentieth-century writers, amongst them Yeats, Laurie Lee and Ted Hughes; and such American poets as Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Theodore Roethke. Each poem is illustrated by iconic artworks by JJ Audubon, creating a beautiful book to cherish for years to come. 

Leseprobe

The creation of birds

From Paradise Lost, Book VII

Mean while the tepid Caves, and Fens and shoares

Thir Brood as numerous hatch, from the Egg that soon

Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos’d

Thir callow young, but feathered soon and fledge

They summ’d thir Penns, and soaring th’ air sublime

With clang despis’d the ground, under a cloud

In prospect; there the Eagle and the Stork

On Cliffs and cedar tops thir Eyries build;

Part loosly wing the Region, part more wise

In common, rang’d in figure wedge thir way,

Intelligent of seasons, and set forth

Thir Aierie Caravan high over Sea’s

Flying, and over Lands with mutual wing

Easing their flight; so stears the prudent Crane

Her annual Voiage, born on Windes; the Aire

Floats, as they pass, fann’d with unnumber’d plumes:

From Branch to Branch the smaller Birds with song

Solac’d the Woods, and spred thir painted wings

Till Ev’n, nor then the solemn Nightingal

Ceas’d warbling, but all night tun’d her soft layers:

Others on Silver Lakes and Rivers Bath’s

Thir downie Brest; the Swan with Arched neck

Between her white wings mantling proudly, Rowes

Her state with Oaries feet: yet oft they quit

The Dank, and rising on stiff Pennons, towre

John Milton (1608–1674)

The Parrot

A parrot, from the Spanish main,

Full young and early caged came o’er,

With bright wings, to the bleak domain

Of Mullah’s shore.

To spicy groves where he had won

His plumage of resplendent hue,

His native fruits, and skies, and sun,

He bade adieu.

For these he changed the smoke of turf,

A heathery land and misty sky,

And turned on rocks and raging surf

His golden eye.

But petted in our climate cold,

He lived and chattered many a day:

Until with age, from green and gold

His wings grew grey.

At last when blind, and seeming dumb,

He scolded, laugh’d, and spoke no more,

A Spanish stranger chanced to come

To Mullah’s shore;

He hail’d the bird in Spanish speech,

The bird in Spanish speech replied;

Flapp’d round the cage with joyous screech,

Dropt down, and died.

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)

The Falcon

Fair Princess of the spacious Air,

That hast vouchsaf’d acquaintance here

With us are quarter’d below stairs,

That can reach Heav’n with nought but Pray’rs,

Who, when our activ’st wings we try,

Advance a foot into the Sky.

Bright Heir t’ th’ bird Imperial,

From whose avenging penons fall

Thunder and Lightning twisted Spun;

Brave Cousin-german to the Sun,

That didst forsake thy Throne and Sphere,

To be a humble Pris’ner here,

And for a pirch of her soft hand,

Resign the Royal Woods command.

How often woulds’t thou shoot Heav’ns Ark,

Then mount thy self into a Lark;

And after our short faint eyes call,

When now a Fly, now nought at all;

Then stoop so swift unto our Sence,

As thou wert sent Intelligence!

Richard Lovelace (1618–1657)

Birdsong

From The Merchant of Venice

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark

When neither is attended, and I think

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

When every goose is cackling, would be thought

No better a musician than the wren.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

The Blossom

Merry, merry sparrow!

Under leaves so green

A happy blossom

Sees you, swift as arrow,

Seek your cradle narrow,

Near my bosom.

Pretty, pretty robin!

Under leaves so green

A happy blossom

Hears you sobbing, sobbing,

Pretty, pretty robin,

Near my bosom.

William Blake (1757–1827)

On Startling Some Pigeons

A hundred wings are dropt as soft as one,

Now ye are lighted! Pleasing to my sight

The fearful circle of your wondering flight,

Rapid and loud, and drawing homeward soon;

And then, the sober chiding of your tone,

As there ye sit, from your own roofs arraigning

My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done,

Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining:

O happy, happy race! for though there clings

A feeble fear about your timid clan,

Yet are ye blest! with not a thought that brings

Disquietude,—while proud and sorrowing man,

An eagle, weary of his mighty wings,

With anxious inquest fills his little span!

Charles Tennyson Turner (1808–1879)

The Thrush’s Nest

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush

That overhung a molehill large and round,

I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush

Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound

With joy; and often, an intruding guest,

I watched her secret toil from day to day –

How true she warped the moss to form a nest,

And modelled it within with wood and clay;

And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,

There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,

Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;

And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,

A brood of nature’s minstrels chirp and fly,

Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.

John Clare (1793–1864)

The Blackbird

O blackbird! sing me something well:

While all the neighbours shoot thee round,

I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,

Where thou may’st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all

Are thine; the range of lawn and park:

The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,

All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring,

Thy sole delight is, sitting still,

With that gold dagger of thy bill

To fret the summer jenneting.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,

Cold February loved, is dry:

Plenty corrupts the melody

That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares,

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,

I hear thee not at all, or hoarse

As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing

While yon sun prospers in the blue,

Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

A Robin

Ghost-grey the fall of night,

Ice-bound the lane,

Lone in the dying light

Flits he again;

Lurking where shadows steal,

Perched in his coat of blood,

Man’s homestead at his heel,

Death-still the wood.

Odd restless child; it’s dark;

All wings are flown

But this one wizard’s—hark!—

Stone clapped on stone!

Changeling and solitary,

Secret and sharp and small,

Flits he from tree to tree,

Calling on all.

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956)

The sedge-warbler

In early summer moonlight I have strayed

Down pass and wildway of the wooded hill

With wonder as again the sedge-bird made

His old, old ballad new beside the mill.

And I have stolen closer to the song

That, lisped low, would swell and change and shrill,

Thick, chattered cheeps that seemed not to belong

Of right to the frail elfin throat that threw

Them on the stream, their waker. Their among

The willows I have watched as over flew

A noctule making zigzag round the lone,

Dark elm whose shadow clipt grotesque the new

Green lawn below. On softest breezes blown

From some far brake, the crusing fern-owl’s cry

Would stay my steps; a beetle’s nearing drone

Would steal upon my sense and pass and die.

There have I heard in that still, solemn hour

The quickened thorn from slaving weeds untie

A prisoned leaf for furled bloom, whose dower

Of incense yet burned in the warm June night;

By darkness cozened from his grot to crower

And curve the night long, that shy eremite

The lowly, banded eft would seek his prey;

And thousand worlds my silent world would light

Till broke the babel of the summer day.

Ralph Hodgson (1871–1962)

The kingfisher

From Upon Appleton House

So when the Shadows laid asleep

From underneath these Banks do creep,

And on the River as it flows

With ebon shuts begin to close;

The modest Halcyon comes in sight,