The Skylark

There are three things that even a part-time birdwatcher, such as I am (you got a problem with that?), could tell you about the skylark: that it nests in the ground; that it will sometimes fly straight upwards to a tremendous height; and that up there in the air it can sustain the most amazing continuous mellifluous warble for minutes at a time. I’ve seen them two places on my travels: the rough grassy fields around Seaham, as mentioned in my last post, and some rough grassland near the Caerlaverock nature reserve, looking out to the Solway Firth. Both places are near the sea – is that a preference of the skylark? You’d have to ask a proper birdwatcher. Come to think of it though, since this post’s poem is by a poet from landlocked Northamptonshire, that just can’t be the case.

John Clare was a proper birdwatcher. Reading his nature poems combines the pleasures of poetry and encylopaedia – they really are as informative about their subject as, say, an entry in Collins’ Bird Guides. Obviously, Clare was a constant observer of the creatures of the countryside, with whom he felt at home. Sometimes, if I have seen a particular bird, I will check my copy of Clare to see if he has a poem about it, which he very often has, though he’ll often have another name for it – a chaffinch is a pettichap, a long-tailed tit a bumbarrel.

On a walk around Derwent Reservoir a few weeks ago, just before the cold snap, my wife and I spotted a flock of wintering fieldfares, handsome oversized thrushes who’ll land in a tree until you come near, at which they’ll fly to another a short distance away – they’ll repeat the process until you leave them alone, or they run out of trees. Alas, Clare did not, as far as I know, write about fieldfares, nor about golden plovers, which we saw flying over the reservoir for the moors. Perhaps if he had had a less troubled life, he could have done in poetry what Thomas Bewick did in engraving, and written a poem on every bird of Great Britain.

But come to think of it, he wrote some pretty good poems about his troubles too. And his nature poetry isn’t entirely free of trouble. Well, anyway, here’s his take on the skylark;

 

 

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.

She Walks in Beauty

I mentioned that I went to a wedding in Shropshire some time back. At the wedding was one of those rarest of things, though becoming more common as people seek to imbue civil ceremonies with some of the gravitas of a religious wedding: a poetry reading. It wasn’t Houseman, of course – that would hardly fit the occasion (a funeral, maybe) – but this poem of Byron’s.

It’s an enchanting poem, which is what the occasion demanded. The couple has the rest of their lives for mundaneness and domesticity, far better on a wedding day to contemplate the perfect, heavenly beauty and grace that the woman – ahem, sorry, lady – in this poem embodies. Oh I know, it’s an impossible, and rather aristocratic ideal of womanhood; but why not put some expectation on the woman for a change? The groom, after all, used his wedding speech to promise, among other things, to learn to drive, something he’s been resisting for years. Poor thing. I digress, though. Here’s the poem:

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Speaking of weddings (for the last time in a while, I promise – I’m boring myself here), Byron himself was married in the small town of Seaham, County Durham. I don’t know why – I suppose the surrounding area was part of his lands or his bride’s, or those of one of his aristocratic chums. The town makes much of the connection – not only is there a street or two named after him, but a whole shopping centre, whose main attraction is a Morrisons, I think.

Seaham now is a pleasant enough seaside town with a decaying feel to it, like much of Durham’s ‘coal coast’. The beach to the south of the town is littered with the remains of industrial materials, which is interesting in itself, while the beach north of the town is nice for walking – though the muddy cliffs seem to be crumbling into the sea. It would be a strange place to contemplate eternal, platonic beauty these days, although there’s always the sea and the sky. There is beauty of another kind, however: you’ll almost always see a kestrel, for example, hovering over the ferns and grasses over the cliff, and, if you’re lucky, another kind of bird, whom I’ll save for my next post.