THE BIRDS OF BURNS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 764, 12 March 1910, Page 9

THE BIRDS OF BURNS.

_ Burns has at least two poems (writes a correspondent 1 to an English contemporary under the initials "J. L.. E.") which may almost be regarded as "bird", poems; one is "The Song to Peggy," and the other "The Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson." The latter shows much knowledge and careful observation ; of ' wild fowlof - grouse, curlews, whistling plover, and' whirring 'paitricks, of . coots and teals, fisher 'herons, : ducks ■ and "'drakes, and the new ; extremely rare bittern'; lastly, of. i.hojvlots and the .clamorous crake that wings - its annual 'way-' from .o\tr>";canM shore .to far.-and more favourable climes In-a 1 different elegy (which reads rather like a rejoicing song on the death of a sportsman) wo have' paitricks and cootie moorcocks briefly but happily touched upon; and there is one. fine "bird"'stanza 111 'Tile Petition of Bruar Water," and a few felicitous lines on fivo ' different song-birds at the opening of "The Brigs of Ayr.' In the latter poem we-'have again y 3 mellow, thrush ."hailing the setting t/. sweet in the. green, thorn bush"-; the_ n.Mbreast.alßo. again 1 '"perching" and piping shrilly; and again, the deep-toned plovers grey 'wild whistling", oer the / he „n.? l-U T r .F a '«"; : stanza, like a stanza in Ihe Lament of Marv Queen of scots, reintroduc'es' tlio lark;'the merle and the mavis:— , '

'^ e ,, S0 ! Jer laTer ock, warbling wild,, shall to the. skies aspire; • cm gowdspink, music's gayest child, _bhall sweetly join the choir; The strong, . the lintwhite ' clear • ■'. . , The mavis mild- and mellow; Ihe robin'pensive , autumn cheer In all her locks of yellow/' The gowdspink is, of course,- the gold- ■ finch (with the• northern pronunciation)but it is more difficult to account foi' the bards characterisation of the merrv lark as sober. - : * Like Chaucer, and the. prcrKaphoelitos in poetry, Bums had a fine way of'markI"? time; but we should not forget that the ploughman from the sun his seasons takes, as Davenant puts it. Accordinglywhile it is "April 1, 1785," in verse it' goes with rural beauty and .abandon-— "While briers and woodbines buddine green,' • > - . . - 5 ■■An', paitricks scraichin' loud at e'en And morning poussie, whiddin, seen,' Inspire my muse, ctc." . This would hardly do for business, but its growing decay in poetry is to be deplored It comes upon us here and there in Burns —m tile noble "Epistle to Davie," after r nappy periphrasis for birds in the expression commoners of air," we have the season indicated by a reference to the "days when daisies deck tho ground and blackbirds whistle clear. Tho crow,' tile pyet, the Witter (or bit-' tern), as well as hawks, owls, and eagles are all—but only casually" and briefly— mentioned in llurns. . In tho "Cottar's Saturday Night" "the blackening traina of craws" retreating to their repose is a characteristic feature of a tempestuous November gloaming; the expression'recalls the cfiective lines in Shakespeare— "Light thickens, and tho crow. Makes wijig to. the rooky wood." In the same poem Burns makes mention of "the raven's clamorous nest." This is a true touch, for the young of this bird 'are all ill to satisfy; and, it .may be added, few birds, if any, are more attentive to the calls of their'callow' broodthan is this rapacious creature. But here Burns may simply be quoting the .Scripture text—"lie stilletli the ravens when they cry"—which asserts the universality of the cure, of Providence.

Apparently he was little charmed by the cuckoo, the repetition of whose two-fold shout only tired his car, tin did the cry of the lapwing Goldsmith's. Yet, twenty years before he dismissed it with sonic contempt as the author of a song that had little originality and showed 110 invention, the young Ivinross*shire poet, Michael Hruce, had said some fine things of the "attendant of the spring;" and Hums must hnvo.known it. Wordsworth's richer but not more charming tribute was not yet due, by about twenty years.