I have read through many of the poems in the Gutenberg production of
Poems Chiefly From Manuscript. I agree with fantasyfan that the longer early poems tended to lose me and I didn't read them all through, but I did read the Middle Period poems right through and also the Asylum Poems.
I preferred those poems with a plainer style, rather than the more self-consciously "poetical" ones, and my interest in birds meant I particularly appreciated poems such as
The Yellowhammer:
Quote:
When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen,
And yellowhammers gathering the dry bents
By the dyke side, on stilly moor or fen,
Feathered with love and nature's good intents?
Rude is the tent this architect invents,
Rural the place, with cart ruts by dyke side.
Dead grass, horse hair, and downy-headed bents
Tied to dead thistles - she doth well provide,
Close to a hill of ants where cowslips bloom
And shed her meadows far their sweet perfume.
In early spring, when winds blow chilly cold,
The yellowhammer, trailing grass, will come
To fix a place and choose an early home,
With yellow breast and head of solid gold.
|
I think this is my favourite poem in the book. Beautiful imagery, and the longing for the natural world from which he has been taken to be in the asylum, is heartbreaking.
And here's a picture of a Yellowhammer which I took recently in New Zealand, for those who don't know what it is like.