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Poem: The Happy Bird
Dec. 3rd, 2011 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lynnoconnachtOnce upon a time, when I was a student not so very long ago, I came across a poem by John Clare. That is not this poem, I'm pretty sure, but this poem touches me all the same. (You may notice that, apart from The Romantics, unofficial themes already mentioed this week's theme also includes 'birds' and 'prettiness'. And, possibly, for some reason, 'sonnets'.)
Anyway, so today's poem comes courtesy of John Clare, another English poet from the Romantic period, although he's rather less well known than his contemporaries and, in fact, was rather disregarded and dismissed for a time. But not anymore!
John Clare wrote copiously about the countryside which he loved (and was being destroyed by the Industrial Revolution) and... Well, you'll read. ^_^
The Happy Bird
The happy White-throat on the swaying bough,
Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind
That ushers in the showers of April,—now
Carols right joyously; and now reclined,
Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat,
To keep her hold;—and till the wind for rest
Pauses, she mutters inward melodies,
That seem her heart’s rich thinkings to repeat.
But when the branch is still, her little breast
Swells out in rapture’s gushing symphonies;
And then, against her brown wing softly prest,
The wind comes playing, an enraptured guest,
This way and that she swings—till gusts arise
More boisterous in their play, then off she flies.
~ by John Clare
~ from The Rural Muse (though I found it on The John Clare Page, which has online versions of Clare's poetry collections here)
Anyway, so today's poem comes courtesy of John Clare, another English poet from the Romantic period, although he's rather less well known than his contemporaries and, in fact, was rather disregarded and dismissed for a time. But not anymore!
John Clare wrote copiously about the countryside which he loved (and was being destroyed by the Industrial Revolution) and... Well, you'll read. ^_^
The Happy Bird
The happy White-throat on the swaying bough,
Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind
That ushers in the showers of April,—now
Carols right joyously; and now reclined,
Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat,
To keep her hold;—and till the wind for rest
Pauses, she mutters inward melodies,
That seem her heart’s rich thinkings to repeat.
But when the branch is still, her little breast
Swells out in rapture’s gushing symphonies;
And then, against her brown wing softly prest,
The wind comes playing, an enraptured guest,
This way and that she swings—till gusts arise
More boisterous in their play, then off she flies.
~ by John Clare
~ from The Rural Muse (though I found it on The John Clare Page, which has online versions of Clare's poetry collections here)
