The final bagatelle mentions the magnificent sea swans of Penzance; anyone who has seen them sailing imperiously along the coast and ignoring the bathers on the beach will know what good breeding is all about.
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O time-worn sparrow what’s to do?
What hides behind your glint-eyed view?
Born and bred under the brute sky
You are closer to God than I.
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From
nest to death in two short years,
The
thrush en plein will live and die,Yet cold and starved, for all its tears,
Knows more of life than you or I.
------------
Even
the raucous crow knows God,
Famished
daily in his black cowling;Risking traffic for scraps in the road,
Struck by a car he went dead-bowling.
------------
Herring
gulls crowd the roofs all night,
Drenched
by rain and staggered by wind;At dawn they launch in hungry flight,
Sailing the spaces of God’s mind.
------------
Balked
from feeding a pigeon broods
Deep
in an oak tree’s shadowed crown, Thirst-tormented like men on roods
As August’s clear-skied heat pours down.
------------
At the pond’s edge young magpies drink,
Nervous of noise and the wind’s breath;
Lusty and boastful on that brink
Their destiny is chicks and death.
----------
The
fox lodges its bloodied teeth,
The
chick fades in its ruthless mauling; The mother moorhen screams her grief,
Thrashing the water, calling, calling.
----------
Starlings
feeding until they die
Scuttle
the road verge like black toys; They rise and fall as cars go by,
Racked by needs, unknowing of joys.
----------
A
blackbird in the snow flew up
And
from a bush it jagged complaint;Though empty now was winter’s cup
Its sole choice was to feed or faint.
----------
A
family of jays resound
High
in an aspen; the wind gushes; Winter done, only one, pink-gowned,
Will live, the others dead in bushes.
----------
A
wren, a spider in its beak,
Hid
in ivy at the grave’s side;God’s love is this: the strong and weak
Have fought for food and then have died.
----------
Sickly
under a bramble bush,
A
robin with a broken wing:Suavely a cat will make its rush –
Christ-like there’ll be an offering.
----------
Spray-engulfed
on the sea-blanched rocks,
The
glossy shag ungainly stands,Undeterred by the grey waves’ knocks
And its mate’s carcass on the sands.
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The
sea swans, timelessly aloof,
Divide
the waters’ warp and woof,Suffering, dying, guilelessly
Like Adam they have glimpsed God’s eye.
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© June-September 2013