Andrew Young is seen in two moods here. In the first poem he shows his playful side while bird-watching. In the tiny second piece, he draws on both his love of nature and his clerical background for his moral. His Selected Poems are published by Carcanet at £9.95.

FIELD-GLASSES

Though buds still speak in hints

And frozen ground has set the flints

As fast as precious stones

And birds perch on the boughs, silent as cones,

~

Suddenly waked from sloth

Young trees put on a ten years’ growth

And stones double their size,

Drawn nearer through field-glasses’ greater eyes.

~

Why I borrow their sight

Is not to give small birds a fright

Creeping up close by inches;

I make the trees come, bringing tits and finches.

~

I lift a field itself

As lightly as I might a shelf,

And the rooks do not rage

Caught for a moment in my crystal cage.

~

And while I stand and look,

Their private lives an open book,

I feel so privileged

My shoulders prick, as though they were half-fledged.

CHILDREN GATHERING VIOLETS

Children, small Herods, slay these Innocents

With blue untidy faces and sweet scents;

But violets gone or even autumn here

Spring in the children lasts through all the year.