BLACKBIRDS haunt the pages of poetry. The contrast between their sometimes irascible behaviour and their peerless singing adds piquancy to the birds’ interaction with their human listeners and observers. They feature in several poems by Edwin Morgan. This particular one, with its dreamy, contemplative atmosphere, dates from 1980 and can be found in Morgan’s Collected Poems (Carcanet, £14.95).
THE BLACKBIRD
I dreamed I was a child again,
the bedroom dark and still.
A blackbird began whistling
from old trees by the wall.
The notes came out so clearly
in phrases long and sweet
I thought he must be speaking
to some listening mate.
But he was never answered
as the day grew slowly grey.
I crept up to the window
thinking surely I’d see
one solitary songbird,
but though he sang and sang
with such half-shy persistence
I never glimpsed a wing.
I stole back to the bedclothes,
turned over; it was five.
I woke, and heard a blackbird
clear and loud and live.
He filled me with his freshness,
more sweet because more real.
Yet he had set me dreaming,
If to wake, and feel.
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