Chapter 14: Winged Wonders: The Beauty of Birds

“Birds have ever been symbols of our highest aspirations. As divine messengers, symbols of our yearning for the heavens, or avatars of glorious song and colour, they have stirred our imaginations from the moment we first looked into the sky. Whether as the Christian dove, or Quetzalcoatl–the Aztec Plumed serpent–or in Plato’s vision of the human soul growing wings and feathers, religion and philosophy have looked to birds as representatives of our better selves–that part of us not bound to the earth.” (inside cover, The bedside book of birds by Graeme Gibson, Anchor Canada, 2005).

“Birds connect people with nature. They add beauty, sound and colour to our world. They provide countless opportunities for enjoyment to birders and outdoor enthusiasts and have cultural and spiritual importance for many people. They contribute many environmental benefits, including pollination, insect and rodent control, and seed dispersal. Birds are also good indicators of environmental health because they are highly visible and relatively easy to study. Observing birds can give us a picture of what is going on in the world.” (Government of Canada).

“The Birds” by William Blake

He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!
She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.

He. O thou summer’s harmony,
I have liv’d and mourn’d for thee;
Each day I mourn along the wood,
And night hath heard my sorrows loud.

She. Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my Lover and my Friend!

He. Come, on wings of joy we’ll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet

Rijksmuseum Note About the Painting:

” Aswan fiercely defends its nest against a dog. In later centuries this scuffle was interpreted as a political allegory: the white swan was thought to symbolize the Dutch statesman Johan de Witt (assassinated in 1672) protecting the country from its enemies. This was the meaning attached to the painting when it became the very first acquisition to enter the Nationale Kunstgalerij (the forerunner of the Rijksmuseum) in 1880. ”

“Hope” is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“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.

The Dalliance of Eagles” by Walt Whitman

“The Restored” by Theodore Roethke

In a hand like a bowl
Danced my own soul,
Small as an elf,
All by itself.
When she thought I thought
She dropped as if shot.
‘I’ve only one wing,’ she said,
‘The other’s gone dead,’
‘I’m maimed; I can’t fly;
I’m like to die,’
Cried the soul
From my hand like a bowl.
When I raged, when I wailed,
And my reason failed,
That delicate thing
Grew back a new wing,
And danced, at high noon,
On a hot, dusty stone,
In the still point of light
Of my last midnight. “

(Roethke, Collected Poems. Anchor Books, 1975, p. 241) 

To read more poems by Theodore Roethke, please open the Poetry Foundation link here. 

“The Eagle” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

“A Hummingbird” by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel;
A resonance of emerald,
A rush of cochineal;
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head,—
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy morning’s ride.

The Fable of Juno and the Peacock by Aesop (6th Century BCE)

“The Peacock made complaint to Juno that, while the nightingale pleased every ear with his song, he no sooner opened his mouth than he became a laughing-stock to all who heard him. The Goddess, to console him, said, “But you far excel in beauty and in size. The splendour of the emerald shines in your neck, and you unfold a tail gorgeous with painted plumage.” “But for what purpose have I,” said the bird, “this dumb beauty so long as I am surpassed in song?” “The lot of each,” replied Juno, “has been assigned by the will of the Fates—to thee, beauty; to the eagle, strength; to the nightingale, song; to the raven, favourable, and to the crow, unfavourable auguries. These are all contented with the endowments allotted to them.””(Wikipedia)

“The Wild Swans” at Coole By William Butler Yeats

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-James-Audubon

“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice outburst among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Additional Source:  T. Hardy, Poems of the Past and Present,  MacMillan & Co. 1919, p. 399).

 Flamingo 

“A Bird, came down the Walk” by Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –
He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. –
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home –
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats

“Hibiscus and Blue Heron” by Theodore Roethke 

The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balance with one leg on a hump
Of marsh grass heaped above a musk-rat hole.
He walks the shallow with an antic grace.
The greet feet break the ridges of the sand.
The long eye notes them minnow’s hiding place.
His beak is quicker than a human hand.
He jerks a frog across his bony lip,
Then points his heavy bill above the wood.
The wide wings flo but once to lift him up.
A single ripple starts from where he stood.

(The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Anchor Books, 1974,  p. 14)

“I Heard a Bird Sing” by Oliver Herford 

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
“We are nearer to Sprin
Than we were in September,”
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

(Additional Source: Felleman, H. (1965) Poems that live forever . Doubleday, p. 389)

Symbolism of the Ibis

“The ibis is a group of wading bird whose cultural significance to mankind cannot be overstated. The African Sacred Ibis is among the most important and meaningful symbols in ancient Egyptian mythology.There are a number of different birds belonging to the ibis group spread across the planet. In each place where they dwell, ibis make a lasting impression. Their distinctive decurved bill shape sets them apart from similar wading birds and makes them an instantly recognizable artistic motif. Connected with sacred wisdom, with healing, with art and magic; the ibis is an animal that evokes wonder and awe in humans worldwide. If this exceptional animal speaks to you, then read on to discover the myths associated with the ibis, its role as a spirit animal or totem, and the symbolism of this exceptional bird!”

“The Darkling Thrush”  by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
      The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, to whom the Musée d’Orsay devoted an exhibition in 2012, is Finland’s major artist, the only one to have achieved truly international recognition in his lifetime, one of the essential authors of a Finnish national culture in the midst of a revival, at a time of struggle for an independence gained from Russia in 1917.

The Woodpecker by Elizabeth Madox Roberts 

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole
And made him a house in the telephone pole.
One day when I watched he poked out his head
 And he had on a hood and a collar of red.
When the streams of rain pour out of the sky,
And the sparkles of lightning go flashing by,
And the big, big wheel of thunder roll,
He can snuggle back in the telephone pole.

“The Woodpecker” by Emily Dickinson

His bill an auger is,
His head, a cap and frill.
He laboreth at every tree, —
A worm his utmost goal.

OWLS

“I rejoice that there are owls. Let them….do their hooting. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.” (Thoreau, Walden, 2021 Arcturus Ed., p 121).

“Second Song to the Same” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

First printed in 1830.

1

Thy tuwhits are lull’d I wot,
Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat,
So took echo with delight,
So took echo with delight,
That her voice untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.

2

I would mock thy chaunt anew;
But I cannot mimick it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
With a lengthen’d loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o….

“The Owl” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream  is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring  sail goes round;
ALone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneth the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

“The Tree, the Bird”  by Theodore Roethke

Uprose, uprose, the stony fields uprose,
And every snail dipped toward me its pure horn.
The sweet light met me as I walked toward
A small voice calling from a drifting cloud.
I was a finger pointing at the moon,
At ease with joy, a self-enchanted man.
Yet when I sighed, I stood outside my life,
A leaf unaltered by the midnight scene,
Part of a tree still dark, still, deathly still,
Riding the air, a willow with its kind,
Bearing its life and more, a double sound
Kin to the wind, and the bleak whistling rain.
The willow with its bird grew loud, grew louder still.
I could not bear its song, that altering
With every shift of air, those beating wings,
The lonely buzz behind my midnight’s eyes;
How deep the mother-root of that still cry!
The present falls, the present falls away;
How pure the motion of the rising day,
The white sea widening on a farther shore.
The bird, the beating bird, extending wings—
Thus I endure this last pure stretch of joy,
The dire dimension of a final thing.

(From The collected poems of Theodore Roethke Anchor Books. 1974/1975, p. 240.

Bird Illustrations from Books and Ornithology Texts

The Dalmatian Pelican:

“Dalmatian Pelican. Pelecanus crispus, Feld. A bird of such striking magnitude as the present having so long escaped observation even on the shores of Europe, what may we not expect from those more distant countries to which the scrutinizing eye of the naturalist has seldom penetrated ? Although this species has been introduced to the notice of the scientific within the last few years only, it has doubtless long abounded where it is now found. The specimen from which our figure is taken was sent us by Baron de Feldegg, and was one of twenty-four killed by him on the shores of Dalmatia. In the letter which accompanied this specimen the Baron thus writes : The first example of this bird that came under my notice was shot by myself in the year 1828 in Dalmatia, and was sent to the Imperial Cabinetin Vienna. Two years after this, Messrs. Ruppell and Kittlitz met with this species in Abyssinia, where,however, it would appear to be very scarce, as those gentlemen procured only a single specimen.”

“Pelican on the Sea of Galilee” (Excerpt) by Lydia Sigourney

“A single pelican was floating there; like myself, he was alone.”—Stephens’s Incidents of Travel.

Lone bird, upon yon sacred sea,
Dimpling with solitary breast
The silent wave of Galilee,
Where shall thine oary foot find rest?

Hast thou a home mid rock or reed
Of this most desolate domain,
Where not one ibex dares to feed,
Nor Arab tent imprints the plain?

What know’st thou of Bethsaida’s gate?
Or old Chorazin’s desert bound?
What heed’st thou of Capernaum’s fate,
Whose shapeless ruins throng around?

Once, when the tempest’s wing was dark,
A sleeper rose and calm’d the sea,
And snatch’d from death the fragile bark—
Here was the spot, but who was he?

He heard the surge impetuous roar,
And trod sublime its wildest crest,
Redeemer! was yon watery floor
Thus by thy glorious feet impress’d?

Oh, when each earthly hope and fear,
Each fleeting loss, each fancied gain,
Shall to our death-dimm’d sight appear
Like the lost cities of the plain,

Then may the soul, enslaved no more,
Launch calmly on salvation’s sea,
And part from time’s receding shore,
Lone, peaceful pelican! like thee.

“The King Fisher” by Maurice Thompson

He laughs by the summer stream
Where the lilies nod and dream,
As through the sheen of water cool and clear
He sees the chub and sunfish cutting sheer.

His are resplendent eyes;
His mien is kingliwise;
And down the May wind rides he like a king,
With more than royal purple on his wing.

His palace is the brake
Where the rushes shine and shake;
His music is the murmur of the stream,
And that leaf-rustle where the lilies dream.

Such life as his would be
A more than heaven to me:
All sun, all bloom, all happy weather,
All joys bound in a sheaf together.

No wonder he laughs so loud!
No wonder he looks so proud!
There are great kings would give their royalty
To have one day of his felicity!

“Nature the Gentlest Mother” by Emily Dickinson

Nature the gentlest mother is
Nature the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest of the waywardest.
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill
By traveller be heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation
A summer afternoon,
Her household her assembly;
And when the sun go down,
Her voice among the aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children sleep,
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps,
Then bending from the sky
With infinite affection|
An infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

“To a Skylark”  by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Public domain. First published by Wiley and Putnam, 1845, in The Raven and Other Poems ​​​​​​​by Edgar Allan Poe)

T”he Sparrow” by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Ten taps upon my window–pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life’s window–sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic’s rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.

“Song” by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Two doves upon the self-same branch
Two lilies on a single stem
Two butterflies upon one flower:–
Oh happy they that look on them.
Who look upon them  hand in hand
Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand
And never give a thought to night.

(from:  J.Marsh (1985) The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, St. Martin’s Press, p. 26.)

“The Birds of Paradise” by John Peale Bishop

Additional Sources:

 Gould, J.  (1804-1881) (British Ornithologist). The Birds of Europe in Five Volumes. For the illustrated volume of J. Gould’s ground breaking book on birds please open the link here.

Biodiversity Heritage Library Dictionary of Birds

Illustrations of Birds 

The Bird in Art: Paintings of Birds

Poems about Birds