Ode To A Nightingale : John Keats : : Bird Poems : :

Portrait of John Keats by William Hilton
W. J. Neatby’s 1899 illustration for
“Ode to a Nightingale”

Ode to a Nightingale : : By John Keats ( 1795 – 1821 )
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

“Ode To A Nightingale”Written in Springtime of 1819 , A Personal Poem on Bird By John Keats ( 31 October 1795, At London – 23 February 1821, At Rome ) is About Keats’ journey into the state of negative capability. It explores the themes of Nature, Transience and Mortality, the last one being particularly relevant to Keats. One can not find an Optimistic quest for pleasure observed in earlier Poems Of Keats.

The songbird is capable of living through its song, which is an overall fortune that humans cannot expect. The end message is that pleasure cannot last and that death is an inevitable. With the loss of the physicality Keats envisages himself dead—as a “sod”( cover of mat of grass ) over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man sitting in his garden, is made more acute by an effort of this ideation. The presence of weather is noticeable in the poem, as 🌼 🌱 Spring came early in 1819, bringing nightingales all over the heath ( wasteland of scrubby vegetation ) :

Joseph Severn ‘s depiction of Keats listening to the nightingale (c. 1845) : : “Ode to a Nightingale” was written between 26 April and 18 May 1819, based on weather conditions and similarities between images in the poem and those in a letter sent to Fanny Brawne on May Day. The poem was composed at the Hampstead house Keats shared with Brown, possibly while sitting beneath a plum tree in the garden. According to Keats’ friend Brown, Keats finished the ode in just one morning: “In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the song of the nightingale.” ( Bate 1963 qtd p. 501 ) : Brown’s account is personal, as he claimed the poem was directly influenced by his house and preserved by his own doing. However, Keats relied on both his own imagination and other literature as sources for his depiction of the nightingale ( Motion 1999 p. 395 ) : : Benjamin Haydon, Keats’ friend, was given a copy of “Ode to a Nightingale”, and he shared the poem with the editor of the Annals of the Fine Arts, James Elmes. Elmes paid Keats a small sum of money, and the poem was published in the July issue. The poem was later included in Keats’ 1820 collection of poems Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems

Art or imagination may provide some middle ground between the gods and humanity which is a notion questioned in the greatest and most complex of Keats’s lyrics, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale. Though Keats had worked hard and long on Ode to Psyche, the Nightingale ode, if Charles Brown’s memory is correct, was written with amazing speed.

Ode to a Nightingale begins not with a vision but with a dull, unexplained pain, not a pain at all but a vague “ache” of emptiness and “drowsy numbness.” A troubled meditation here in one of the richest and most compressed in English poetry, finds joy in the world and transform the soul.

In Ode to a Nightingale, the poet attempts to flee the “weariness, the fever, and the fret,” of our tragic existence, “Where youth grows pale, and spectre—thin, and dies,” first through an ecstasy of intoxication and then “on the viewless wings of Poesy,” through imagination itself. In the crucial and difficult middle section of the poem, the mind attempting both to transcend life and remain aware of itself becomes lost in a dark wild, an “embalmed darkness” of fleeting sensations that suggests not escape but its very opposite, death. But the nightingale—its song as the imagination elaborates upon it—is immortal, and in “ancient days” belonged to a world of enchantment. It is the same song, “that oft—times hath / Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.” With these beautiful words the poem turns about, the word forlorn shocking the poet into awareness. The beauty of an imagined “long ago” suggested by this word (forlorn = “long ago”) turns by a sad pun (forlorn = “sad”) into a remarkable moment of pained self-consciousness. The bird flies off, and “the fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. / … / Was it a vision or a waking dream? / Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?” The poem ends by dismantling its own illusion. That illusion, or trope, is that imagination, by creating permanence and beauty, may allow the individual himself a transcendence of the mind’s fleeting sensations, like the bird’s song. But imagination needs temporality to do its work. It then tantalizes us with a desire to experience the eternity of the beauty we create. But again, no real experience is possible to us—as the central stanzas suggest—apart from time and change. Imagination seems to falsify: the more the poet presses the bird to contain, the more questionable this imaginative projection becomes.

Notes for each of the 8 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India October 2 , 2023 : : : :

Pigeons : Philip Larkin : : Bird Poems : :

Poet Philip Larkin ( 1922 – 1985 ) talking about his new anthology ‘The Oxford Book of 20th Century English Verse’ prior to its inclusion on the BBC television series ‘Poetry Prom’, July 1973. (Photo by Barry Wilkinson/Radio Times via Getty Images

PIGEONS : : By Philip Larkin ( 1922 – 1985 )

On shallow slates the pigeons shift together,
Backing against a thin rain from the west
Blown across each sunk head and settled feather.
Huddling round the warm stack suits them best,
Till winter daylight weakens, and they grow
Hardly defined against the brickwork. Soon,
Light from a small intense lopsided moon
Shows them, black as their shadows, sleeping so.

“Pigeons”First published in Departure, January 1957 , A Bird Poem By Philip Larkin ( 1922 – 1985 ) is About crowd formation of the Pigeon Birds The Poet Speaker observed during the colder daylight in Winter. The pigeons like to draw /” shift together” as if Backing against a thin rain from the West / Blown across with severely cold wind. “It suits them to huddle round” , that is , they curl up with ” sunk head and settled feather”, outside in the rain. Such formation covers provide them protective pile / stack of cumulation. And the young ones grow with their “shadows shown by Light from a small intense /clear & visible lopsided , that is, assymetric Moon ( one side lower, smaller or lighter than the other , as if non – functioning ) In the shadows too, they seem as if sleeping 😴 😌 ❄️❄️

In September 1956 Philip wrote a letter to his mother which contained the following paragraph : : As recorted in Philip Larkin.com : : : :

“I’m glad you heard the two programmes. I purred with pleasure at Stephen Potter’s appreciation and have sent him a copy……. The Hull programme was all right but I thought the poems were read badly. The one about Pigeons was written at Grantham when we were there at Christmas — they were on a roof opposite the hotel and I watched them through the short afternoons as we sat in the lounge. Do you remember them? I expect not. You were asleep most of the time.”

“Eva Larkin had been in hospital and Philip had obtained permission to take her out over the 1955 Christmas holiday. He and his mother spent what must have been a very lonely time there . And why Grantham? I think he would have been comforted if he had known a young Margaret Thatcher lived just up the road!” : : : :

“Pigeons”, A Bird Poem By Philip Larkin, Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 30 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Pigeons : James Henry : : Bird Poems : :

1866, James Henry ( December 13, 1798
Dublin, 1798 – 14 July 1876 (aged 77)
Dalkey, County Dublin , 1876 ) Irish classical Scholar, Humanist , and Neglected Poet of his time. : : : : : : two long narrative poems describing his travels, and various pamphlets of a satirical nature.

At its best his poetry has something of the flavour of Robert Browning and Arthur Hugh Clough while at its worst it resembles the doggerel of William McGonagall. His five volumes of verse were all published at his own expense and received no critical attention either during or after his lifetime. : : : : Christopher Ricks writes a biographical anecdote about his reinventing James Henry : :I was editing the New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse , and browsing in the stacks of the Cambridge University Library. And the name James Henry intrigued me with its suggestion of the literally and literarily preposterous. Taking down one of his many books from the shelf, I noticed a few things: that these poems of his had been printed (at his own expense, surely?) in Dresden, Germany; that he had inscribed and presented the copy to the Cambridge library; and – unkindest cut of all – that the pages had never been cut. “Unopened”, as book dealers say. Intrigued, I took the book out, and wielded a paper knife. Straightaway I loved the way James Henry wielded words, and put eight of his poems into the book: “Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire”, “Pain”, “Old Man”, “Very Old Man”, “Another and another and another”, “My Stearine Candles”, “Once on a time a thousand different men”, and “Two hundred men and eighteen killed”Did Henry ever once get reviewed? Apparently not. But this seems to have whetted, not fretted. There is a sly zest in his puncturing of the pseudo-punctilious, his “Letter received from a reviewer to whom the author, intending to send the MS of his ‘Six Photographs of the Heroic Times’ for review, had by mistake sent, instead of it, a MS of Milton’s ‘Paradise Regained'”.He was in his fifties and sixties when he hit his stride and his particular notes. But if he is now a neglected poet, there is nothing to choose between now and then, since he has always been neglected. Since I love his voice, I love the thought that it might at last be heard. We sometimes speak carelessly of a poet’s work being revived; mistakenly, because it is not the work that is revived (in all the cases that matter it never died) but rather a body of readers that is at last revived or vived. Anyway, it is not a matter of reviving Henry’s reputation as a poet. No such reputation was ever enjoyed by him. To this day his poems go unmentioned except by those who admire the scholar and the man – and from these, the poems get only shortish shrift. For me, they are unaffectedly direct, sinewy, seriously comic. And brave. For it took courage in James Henry to avow so many pagan values and to repudiate most Christian – or religious – ones. Henry at one point wondered whether to include in one of his volumes on Virgil a comparison of Christianity and Paganism. “In favour of which?” asked his friend, the classical scholar JP Mahaffy. “Of Paganism, of course,” was the reply. “Then,” said Mahaffy, “I would advise you to say nothing about it.”Like any good humanist, any true one, Henry liked human beings, and was not afraid to ask the ancient questions with immediate urgency. The problem of pain, for instance, or rather, the problem of reconciling pain with a god who is all-powerful and all-loving, was not, for this doctor and sceptic, as easily assuaged as, oh, CS Lewis duly made out. If he had to choose between a God and gods, he preferred polytheism, but he believed it would need either a miracle or a ruse for even polytheism to be humane. The man who writes with such sardonic fervour about religion is manifestly the same person who has a vibrating indignation at political injustice and indifference, who writes about “Progress” and on safety down the coal-mines – “Two hundred men and eighteen killed”. But the ordinary daily things of this life are there for his muse and his amusement too; let us honour this man. And the stearine Candle light he created for us ” ( Christopher Ricks in Guardian. ) Christopher Ricks is A critic and editor of poets including Tennyson and T. S. Eliot, was researching Victorian poetry for his The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (Oxford Books of Prose & Verse), and came upon several volumes of James Henry’s poems. The Amazon page for the Selected Poems of James Henry includes, under the ‘More About the Author’ section, a biography of the novelist Henry James. It would appear that James Henry is still eclipsed by Henry James, even on his own Amazon page.This makes James Henry a curiously modern poet. A notable scholar of Virgil’s poetry, Henry leaned more towards paganism than Christianity; dislike of some of the more lamentable aspects of Christianity is found in a number of his poems.

Pigeons : : By James Henry ( 1798 – 1876 ) : : : : By what mistake were pigeons made so happy,
So plump and fat and sleek and well content,
So little with the affairs of others meddling,
So little meddled with? say, a collared dog,
And hard worked ox, and horse still harder worked,
And caged canary, why, uncribbed, unmaimed,
Unworked and of its will lord absolute,
The pigeon sole has free board and free quarters,
Till at its throat the knife, and pigeon pie
Must smoke ere noon upon the parson’s table;
Say, if ye can; I cannot, for the life o’ me;
But, whersoe’er I go, I find it so;
The pigeon of all things that walk or fly
Or swim or creep, the best cared-for and happiest;
Ornament ever fresh and ever fair
Of castle and of cottage, palace roof
And village street, alike, and stubble field,
And every eye and volute of the minster;
Philosopher’s and poet’s and my own
Envy and admiration, theme and riddle;
Emblem and hieroglyphic of the third
Integral unit of the Trinity;
Not even by pagan set to heavier task
Than draw the cart of Venus; since the deluge
Never once asked to carry in the bill,
And by the telegraph and penny-post
Released for ever from all charge of letters.

“Pigeons”, A Charming Bird Poem By Irish Scholor, however neglected as A Poet, James Henry ( 1798 – 1876 ) is About The lightened World and The darkened World. : The dark one made by lack of light ; the dark that becomes darker. With the light the dark is removed. The dark one consists stress or pressure the removal of which will bring relief from underlying pain. Such representation will buoy up and make one happy, more cheerful. : : The Opening line of the poem is comic yet very remarkable . : : : : “By what mistake were pigeons made so happy, 1
So plump and fat and sleek and well content, 2
So little with the affairs of others meddling, 3
So little meddled with? say, a collared dog.” 4 : : : : ( lines 1 To 4 ) : : : : if there is any happiness on this planet it must be taken for granted that this is despite the guardianship and control exercised by the Creator and His foresightful care for the living beings – His subjects. He alleviated the darkness by providing lights and by that the underlying burdens of sorrows and pains are removed ; the happiness prevails. This is a poet who appreciates how much can be effected by releasing his control to provide “So little”that will be more than sufficient to produce further chain of events. First , allow some wrongs that impose sadness and sorrows. Let there be disappiinrments everywhere. When His attention is drawn by the subjects , He will alleviate them. So lovable repeated affairs. James Henry can combine a direct vision of life with a turn that has its unexpected special human situations for instance here with ,” Pigeons” representing complete bliss , delight and peace showered by Good Heavens. Is there a mistake or a surprise that “pigions are made so happy ; So plump and fat and seek and well content. ” Pigions are not intrusive; not meddlesome . They do not seem to have interfered with in the affairs of others . Do you find their behaviour unwanted ? Or annoying !? Disturb the smoothness .. ! Destroy the arrangement or order of the inside of the human’s dwellings / house .. . Now do not try to make such list , because , the poem is full of other enjoyable comic references till the last line. : : : :

It’s difficult to imagine Tennyson composing a poem about pigeons; we have to wait until the twentieth century for that. (Philip Larkin, for instance, would have a go at writing a pigeon-poem.)

“Pigions”, A Bird Poem By James Henry , Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 29 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Hope is the Thing with Feathers : Emily Dickinson : : Bird Poems : :

Daguerreotype type of Emily Dickinson ( 1830 – 1886 ) taken in 1848 while attending Mount Holyoke Seminary.
http://www.edickinson.org

“Hope” is the thing with feathers : by Emily Dickinson ( 1830 – 1886 )
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Notes:
Note to POL students: The inclusion or omission of the numeral in the title of the poem should not affect the accuracy score. It is optional during recitation.

Originally titled “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – (314) : From poetryfoundation.org For Educational Purposes only.

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – (314) By Emily Dickinson ( 1830 – 1886 ), A lyric poem in ballad meter / Bird Poem ( published posthumously as “Hope” in 1891 ) . It is one of 19 poems included in the collection, in addition to the poem “There’s a certain Slant of light.” With the discovery of Fascicle 13 after Dickinson’s death by her sister, Lavinia Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” was subsequently published in 1891 in a collection of her works under the title Poems, which was edited and published by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. The Poem is About , “Hope” that does not leave even if they offer nothing in return to it.

“hope” as a bird, which is being used as a metaphor for the idea of salvation. Dickinson has nine variations of the word “hope,” which can be interpreted in multiple ways. Morgan writes that Dickinson often writes about birds when she is describing acts of worship, which coincides with the format of the hymn. Birds in Christian iconography are often represented as a dove. Dickinson uses many allusions to nature in her poems. Within this poem, she takes the image of the bird and the violence of weather to create a balance between the destructive and the beneficent. It is also a juxtaposition of the interior world and exterior, with the soul considered “interior” and the storms that attempt to dismantle hope being the “exterior.”

Due to the riddle-like nature of her poems, as well as the extensive use of her lexicon, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” can be interpreted through multiple shades of meaning.

Dickinson’s poems are lauded as mysterious and enigmatic and typically have a volta, or turn in topic, at the end, such as “Because I could not stop for Death.” “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” while possessing a similar quality, is considered “childlike” by some critics due to the simplicity of the work. Vendler expands on this idea by stating it is also due to the way that Dickinson constructs her poems in quatrains and hymnal meter, which can be seen as simplistic. Morgan argues that because of Dickinson’s “antagonistic relation” she has with nineteenth-century Christianity, the poet gives a “reassessment of spirituality” through this poem by the use of the image of the bird and the Christian conception of “hope.”

Most notable of the adaptations is the Susan LaBarr version that was written for women’s choir and intended to be accompanied by piano. Additional musical adaptations of the poem are also done by Robert Sieving, Emma Lou Diemer and Paul Kelly.

Alternative country band, Trailer Bride, titled their final album, Hope Is a Thing with Feathers. The title of the album is a variant of the name of the poem. The title track of the album is an adaptation of the poem written by Dickinson, where she receives a writing credit.

The Above information and Appreciation of the poem is based on Wikipedia’s Article.

The Cuckoo : John clare : : Bird Poems : :

John Clare ( July 13th, 1793 – May 20th, 1864 at the age of 71 )

The Cuckoo : : by John Clare : :
The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight,
With narrow pointed wings
Whews o’er our heads—soon out of sight
And as she flies she sings:
And darting down the hedgerow side
She scares the little bird
Who leaves the nest it cannot hide
While plaintive notes are heard.
I’ve watched it on an old oak tree
Sing half an hour away
Until its quick eye noticed me
And then it whewed away.
Its mouth when open shone as red
As hips upon the brier,
Like stock doves seemed its winged head
But striving to get higher
It heard me rustle and above leaves
Soon did its flight pursue,
Still waking summer’s melodies
And singing as it flew.
So quick it flies from wood to wood
‘Tis miles off ‘ere you think it gone;
I’ve thought when I have listening stood
Full twenty sang—when only one.
When summer from the forest starts
Its melody with silence lies,
And, like a bird from foreign parts,
It cannot sing for all it tries.
‘Cuck cuck’ it cries and mocking boys
Crie ‘Cuck’ and then it stutters more
Till quick forgot its own sweet voice
It seems to know itself no more.


— John Clare

“The Cuckoo”A 32 lines Lyrical Bird Poem By The Peasant Poet, John Clare is About describing the Cuckoo’s flight its Singing “summer melodies” “as it flies” or when “out of sight” as seen and heard with his magnified hearing and observing for hours, with his binocular vision scanning the “old oak tree” and forest.

Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 27 , 2023 : : : :

The Cuckoo : John Burroughs : : Bird Poems : :

John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was Wake-Robin in 1871. In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs’ special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of “a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world.” The result was a body of work whose resonance with the tone of its cultural moment explains both its popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since. Burroughs enjoyed good physical and mental health during his later years until only a few months before his death when he began to experience lapses in memory and show general signs of advanced age including declining heart function. In February 1921 Burroughs underwent an operation to remove an abscess from his chest. Following this operation, his health steadily declined. Burroughs died on March 29, 1921.
Burroughs poses with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford at Edison’s home in Ft. Myers, Florida, 1914. All the while, he continued to publish essays, and grew interested in the poetry of Walt Whitman. Burroughs met Whitman in Washington, DC in November 1863, and the two became close friends.: : Burroughs published Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person, the first biography and critical work on the poet, which was extensively (and anonymously) revised and edited by Whitman himself before publication.[9] Four years later, the Boston house of Hurd & Houghton published Burroughs’s first collection of nature essays, Wake-Robin. : : President Theodore Roosevelt, who was friends with Burroughs. In his prime, John Burroughs (1837-1921) was one of the most popular writers in America, with a huge following of readers and relationships with the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and railroad tycoon E. F. Harriman. His passion was the birds, forests, rivers, and mountains of his native Catskills, and his writings reveal a scientist’s powers of observation and a nature-lover’s emotional connection to the land. In 1919, at age 82 he appeared in a short film, shown leading a trio of young children around his Catskill farm. He points out butterfly, chipmunk, grasshopper, and then the following words appear on the screen.
A 2005 photograph of Slabsides, Burroughs’s cabin in West Park, NY; the cabin was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968 . : : Burroughs Creek in St. Louis County, Missouri, was named to honor him. : : : : : : : Famous quotes
“The Kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.”

“Leap, and the net will appear.”[citation needed]

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”

The Cuckoo : : by John Burroughs ( April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921 ) : : American Poem : :


Strange, reserved, unsocial bird,
Flitting, peering ‘mid the leaves,
Thy lonely call a twofold word
Repeated like a soul that grieves—
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou”—a solemn plaint
Now loud and full, now far and faint.
A joyless wingèd anchorite,
Or hapless exile in the land,
Oft intoning in the night
A rune I fain would understand—
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” a boding cry,
When night enfolds the earth and sky.
With eye and motions of the dove,
And throat that swells and heaves,
Thy life seems quite untouched by love,
Or by the spell that passion weaves.
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” a doleful note,
From out a smooth and dovelike throat.
Thy nest a little scaffolding
Of loosely woven boughs,
Compared with nests of birds that sing,
A hut beside a house.
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” unsocial sound,
When blithe and festive calls abound.
Art prophet of the coming rain—
The raincrow, wise in weather lore?
Or dost thou try to say in vain
The words of thine in days of yore?
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou.” Weird thy call,
Though happy skies are over all.
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” repeated oft,
Like one who half recalls the chimes
Of “Cuckoo,” “Cuckoo,” in wood and croft,
Across the seas in Wordsworth’s times.
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” thy cheerless strain
To country folk foretelleth rain.
Thy voice hath lost its blithesome tone,
Thy ways have changed from gay to grave;
Do nesting cares make thee to moan
Since finchie now is not thy slave?
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” in voice forlorn,
As if thy breast were on a thorn.
But thou hast gained in love, I ween,
And gained in hue a burnished brown;
In thicket dense thy nest is seen,
And love of young is now thy crown.
“Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” a call of love,
Though doleful as a mourning-dove.

John Burroughs

“The Cuckoo” By an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States , John Burroughs ( April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921 ) is About “Strange, reserved, unsocial bird,
Flitting, peering ‘mid the leaves : Art Prophet of the coming Rain, Its weird call , A call of love , repeated oft in voice forelorn : unsocial sound of Cuckoo. “Kou-kou,” “Kou-kou,” a boding cry, a doleful note From out a smooth and dovelike throat.” : : : :

Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 26 , 2023 : : : :

The Cuckoo : Frederick Locker- Lampson : : Bird Poems : :

The Cucko : : by Frederick Locker-Lampson

We heard it calling, clear and low,
That tender April morn; we stood
And listened in the quiet wood,
We heard it, ay, long years ago.
It came, and with a strange, sweet cry,
A friend, but from a far-off land;
We stood and listened, hand in hand,
And heart to heart, my Love and I.
In dreamland then we found our joy,
And so it seemed as ’twere the Bird
That Helen in old times had heard
At noon beneath the oaks of Troy.
O time far off, and yet so near!
It came to her in that hushed grove,
It warbled while the wooing throve,
It sang the song she loved to hear.
And now I hear its voice again,
And still its message is of peace,
It sings of love that will not cease—
For me it never sings in vain.

“The Cuckoo” By Frederick Locker- lampson is About Cuckoo’s Singing in tender April Morning. : : Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 25 , 2023 : : : :

Koel : Puran Singh : Bird Poems : :

Koel : : By Puran Singh

“Koel”, A Bird Poem By Indian Poet Puran Singh is About The Poet Speaker’s judgemental observation of Habitats, Appearance Behavioural Aspects and intent of Indian Black 🖤 Cuckoo known in India as KOEL famous for its Melodious Singing of Creation Calling (Bird’s Loud / Cry) in Higher and higher Pitching ) during Spring time.

The continuous high pitched sweet notes have formed an invisible pain and sympathy to see her black complexion. : : When he sings from the core of his Heart , thousands memories wake in his Soul.

Hence , The Poet Speaker is anxious 🫦 to conform to the conceived belief in judgemental observation made by having a conversation with the Bird itself. For this, The Poet has raised several queries to a Black Male Koel like : :
(i) How has her body become black and by what type of lightning ?
(ii) What are those songs which she sings ?
(iii) What keeps him fresh after being charred ?
(iv) Why does he continue to sing concealing himself in the mango tree’s leaves ? Koel narrates his agony to the poet. : : : :

Second Part of the poem consists of the recorded reply of KOEL to the aforesaid queries from the Poet Speaker. : :

It was a fire of love in his heart ❤️ which has charred his wings yet, that has made him appear new and fresh. The greenery of the garden around excites him more and his Heart ❤️ starts enclosing. : ” Where is my loved one , my beloved ? Being separated from the beloved ( A Female Partner KOEL ) the Male KOEL is restless. The KOEL asks the leaves of the tree as to ,”Why are you a silent Spectator to my agony ? ” : : : :

The energetic Bird like KOEL charges his listeners of the aggrieved Soul, with his extraordinary energy. The kindling spark of fire burns the KOEL who envies them again to become as fresh as KOEL.

To The Cuckoo : William Wordsworth : : Bird Poems : :

: William Wordsworth ( April 7, 1770 – 1850 ) : Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / ( Alamy Stock Photo ) : : poet laureate , England ( 1843 – 1850 ) : One of the founders of English Romanticism and one its most central figures and important intellects. He is remembered as a poet of spiritual and epistemological speculation, a poet concerned with the human relationship to nature and a fierce advocate of using the vocabulary and speech patterns of common people in poetry.: : He had also come to the conclusion that the troubles of society were specifically urban in nature. This view finds eloquent expression in Wordsworth’s most powerful early poem, “Tintern Abbey.” Thinking of the way in which his memories of the Wye River valley had sustained him, Wordsworth wrote:

“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet.”

To the Cuckoo : : By William Wordsworth ( 1770 – 1850 ) England :
O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessèd Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

“To The Cuckoo” A 32 lines – 4 in each of 8 Stanzas rhymed as ABAB in ( iambic- tetrameter of odd lines and iambic – triameter of even lines ) , Bird Poem By William Wordsworth is About the Cuckoo Bird and how The Poet Speaker would hear them sing and imagine where they are and try to find them. One may view it about time calling it ‘ Cuckoo Clocks’. and not the bird. He states, “thy twofold shout I hear” in one stanza and “thrice welcome” in another, as if the bird was telling us the time ; And another hint with this line, “That golden time again.” : : Hearing to Cuckoo reminds him of his “school boy days” of childhood which he calls as “golden”( time again) and a tale of “visionary”( hours ) when he was searching for it , because he only can picture those hours from his memories. : A baby’s gibberish sound, ” ” babbling to the value of sunshine and flowers” : 🌺 🌹 The Cuckoo is a forerunner of the Springtime arriving very fast. : A “Mystery in voice” / “A shout passing from hill to hill / At once far off , and near”, created by an “invisible” Bird. The Poet knows it only by its voice. : The Cuckoos in Nature can thus bring back 🔙 many memories which he could think of for hours. Including ” thousand ways in bush , and tree and sky ” as well as “roving Through woods and in the 💚 greens” in search of Cry Calling Cuckoo. He has not lost hope and still wants to find it , his love for a Cuckoo , as he says, “still longed for never seen ” : : Wordsworth rejoices in the arrival of the cuckoo, calling it a carefree and merry bird. He finds the cuckoo to be a wandering voice, as it sings where ever it goes and fills every corner with its melodious voice. While the poet laid down on the grass, he heard the cuckoo’s call. Several Name – calling of this Creation Calling Bird can be listed , such as : “Blithe Newcomer” and “a wandering voice”, as “Darling of the Spring”, “an invisible thing”, “a voice”, “a mystery “, And in the End, “a blessed bird”. Cuckoo is blessed with the angel or like a fairy. The Human race alongwith the earth “paces” at the rate of events repeated in cycle of seasons when the Cuckoo Bird fills with the voice of happiness and joy that makes a ‘dreamland’ which Wordsworth calls ,”unsubstantial faery place”, that is, ethereal or unreal fairy’s place where the Cuckoos like to dwell in “a fit home for thee.” : : : :

To The Cuckoo “, A Bird Poem By William Wordsworth Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 23 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

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