The Skylark (John Clare, 1835)

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.

  

NOTE:  

I’m not sure what drew me to John Clare’s The Skylark (from The Rural Muse) this morning or to these hare and bird paintings from ancient Pompeii.  

Possibly it was something as simple as matching in my mind the vivid, visceral life the English poet and Italian painters each invested in their natural world renderings.  Or possibly I was sensing and reacting to the permanently-on-the-edge-of-danger status that defines the hare and the ground-nesting skylark’s existence (and frankly the lives of most wild animals) and identifying it with Clare's disaster-just-around-the-corner life (the great poet lived on the edge of a forest of madness that later surrounded him) and that of the precarious Pompeiians (who lived on the edge of Vesuvius).  

I think my pinched (often-on-the-edge) back pricked my brain and animated me, but I'm glad it did.   What a wonderful poem; what great paintings!

Yesterday evening was lovely also.  Our dinner guests couldn’t have been nicer and getting the house together for them, restoring its gleam, made a world of difference in our psyches, my troubled back notwithstanding.  The meal we served is the perfect relaxed entertaining/spending time with your guests program -- not too much hassle in cooking and keeping things moving.  If anyone is interested, I will send you the carte (along with wine suggestions). 

Six more days until Jane’s home.  So far, I’ve learned from her emails that she has now added to my shot glass collection by filling in the missing Amsterdam and Copenhagen pieces.  She’s a lovely girl.  I hope she's trying some Danish foods she doesn't think she'd enjoy.  I tried to prime her for the experience by telling her that apparently Alfred Hitchcock used to have Universal Studios import his breakfast bacon (a food she does enjoy) for him regularly from Denmark.  Unfortunately, she's not yet a big Alfred Hitchcock fan, so I don't think that "reached" her at all.