--------------
The
sycamore – a fair field full of folk –
Stood
calm against a sky like watered yolk;The late November gales of previous days
Had gone their way and left a muslin haze
Which strained the morning-primrose, gin-taut air
And left a dust of damp on skin and hair.
Before men’s hives had throbbed to busy life
I heard a robin shrilling on its fife
And glancing up was gripped by Langland’s tale
Embodied in that tree’s now drab sangrail:
Its leafage, yellowed, browned, and stained like teeth
Had mostly fled to die upon the heath
So that its clutching branches like a whale’s
Dark ribs, grey-grained and wet, strung round with brails
Of cream-splashed lichen, now emerged to sight
And through their clerestory the morning light,
Shut out since spring, shone through and lit the scene
On which a birds’ commedia would begin.
Able again to perch within the tree’s
Great bowl, the birds intensely searched its screes
For slugs or mites, or merely sought to rest
Awhile, winter-shabby and hunger-pressed.
At top among the bare new-fingered growth
The spiv-like starlings jitterbugged, uncouth;
They whistled rudely, barged for dance-floor space –
Pomaded threadbares, glib and sharp of face.
As high but shunning that licentious crowd
A John Bull robin swelled his chest, red-loud;
Buff-coated, breeches starched, he shook his frame
With shouts to glory and contempt of shame.
Beneath, like Dante’s wind-whirled souls, great-tits
Hied through the tree, keening with wind-crazed wits;
Like gem-green sparks they flared and tumbled till,
Edge-gathered, they were fate-flung from the sill.
Beneath again, a stiff Beau Brummell jay
Ruffed its fawn suitings in a foppish way;
Pained by the tits’ unearthly chatterings
It haughtily decamped on blue-jewelled wings.
It left two magpies hunched like scheming waiters
In work-shined black-suit livery and gaiters;
Felicitous, they sidled through the boughs
With bill-stilettos and untruthful brows.
Lowest were pigeons pleased to be ignored
Like meek Salvationists who loathed a crowd;
Greyly unkempt like parcels loosely tied,
Hourly unclaimed, they shelf-sat, satisfied.
