Woodlarks singing in the darkness
6am on the heath. A cold blustery morning. Clouds on the eastern horizon rather than any sign of approaching dawn. From the dark clumps of gorse, the faint eerie fluting of woodlark song - a series of descending notes, rallentando, like a clockwork nightingale running down.
They are supposed to sing in flight, but I've never been lucky enough to see this. Even when I'm out on the heath in broad daylight at this time of year, I hear them but never quite catch a glimpse. They sing hidden.
Hence perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poem (fragments) The Woodlark:
TEEVO cheevo cheevio chee:
O where, what can tháat be?
Weedio-weedio: there again!
So tiny a trickle of sóng-strain;
And all round not to be found
For brier, bough, furrow, or gréen ground
Before or behind or far or at hand
Either left either right
Anywhere in the súnlight.
Well, after all! Ah but hark-
‘I am the little wóodlark.
You can hear quite a nice sample of woodlark song at the British Library website, though it doesn't quite capture the unearthly quality it has when you are surrounded by it in darkness.
***
Address to the Woodlark
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing, fond complaining.
Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that wad touch her heart
Wha kills me wi' disdaining.
Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd,
Sic notes o' woe could wauken!
Thou tells o' never-ending care;
O'speechless grief, and dark despair:
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
Or my poor heart is broken!
Robert Burns
They are supposed to sing in flight, but I've never been lucky enough to see this. Even when I'm out on the heath in broad daylight at this time of year, I hear them but never quite catch a glimpse. They sing hidden.
Hence perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poem (fragments) The Woodlark:
TEEVO cheevo cheevio chee:
O where, what can tháat be?
Weedio-weedio: there again!
So tiny a trickle of sóng-strain;
And all round not to be found
For brier, bough, furrow, or gréen ground
Before or behind or far or at hand
Either left either right
Anywhere in the súnlight.
Well, after all! Ah but hark-
‘I am the little wóodlark.
You can hear quite a nice sample of woodlark song at the British Library website, though it doesn't quite capture the unearthly quality it has when you are surrounded by it in darkness.
***
Address to the Woodlark
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing, fond complaining.
Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that wad touch her heart
Wha kills me wi' disdaining.
Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd,
Sic notes o' woe could wauken!
Thou tells o' never-ending care;
O'speechless grief, and dark despair:
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
Or my poor heart is broken!
Robert Burns