Quest
I
Hovering about London
making frequent excursions
across the channel for long
walks over the hills of Boulogne
The Red Lion Inn in Stratford
sadly degenerated from excess of travel
17th June ‘I think she be gone now, sir,
May is the time to hear her’
the explanation is to be found in Shakespeare
who says: ‘the cuckoo is in June, heard nor regarded’
White limits the singing of the nightingale until
June 15 but seasons differ it can’t be possible
that any class of feathered songsters
all stop on a given day
II
There is a tradition that when George I died
the nightingales all ceased singing for the year
out of grief at the sad event but he did not die
until June 21 that would give a margin of several days
For it seems that the nightingale ceases singing
the moment her brood is hatched after that event
you hear only a harsh chiding or anxious note
hence the poets who attribute her melancholy strains
to sorrow for the loss of her young are entirely at fault
but she probably does nothing of the kind
the song of a bird is not a reminiscence but an anticipation
and expresses happiness or joy only except in those cases
where the male bird having lost its mate sings for a few days
as if to call the lost one back
III
When the male renews his powers of song
after the young brood has been destroyed
or after it has flown away it is a sign that a new brood
is contemplated the song is as it were the magic note
that calls the brood forth the poets therefore
in depicting the bird on such occasions as bewailing
the lost brood are wide of the mark he is invoking
and celebrating a new brood
encouraged by hearing that they were not done singing
yet they had often been heard during haying-time
opportunity to call them out with an imitator
the opening part of the song is called the challenge
astonished at the strong piercing quality of the strain
It echoed in the woods and copses about
IV
The combination did not seem a likely place for nightingales
walking rapidly thitherward there were several warblers
but not Philomel probably missed the bird by just fifteen
minutes a broad well-kept path that seemed to have
the same inevitable right of way as a brook foxglove pierced
the lower foliage and wild growths everywhere with its tall spires
of purple flowers the wild honeysuckle with a ranker and coarser
fragrance the situation began to look serious following
one of those inevitable footpaths that cuts diagonally through
the cemetery behind the old church the ear too critical
The editor had extended White's date of June 15 to July 1
as the time to which the nightingale continues in song
It is said they grow hoarse late in the season
Larks are seen in buntings and a wren's song entrances like Philomel's
V
Startled by a quick brilliant call or whistle a few rods away that at once
recalled the imitator the long-sought bird was inflating her throat
How It had the quality that startles it pierced the gathering gloom
like a rocket the hermit thrush just tuning her instrument
Pause near other shrines not a sound the alternative
is to spend the night under the trees with the nightingales
and possibly surprise them at their revels in the small hours
of the morning or catch them at their matins
The prettiest little showers march across the country
in summer scarcely bigger than a street watering-cart
they keep the haymakers in perpetual flurry
the hay is got together inch by inch every inch is fought for
It is usually nearly worn out with handling
before they get it into the rick
VI
In Hitchin on the road between the station and the town
proper is Nightingale Lane famous for its songsters
It is understandable that this bird might keep people awake
at night by singing near their houses
there is something in the strain so startling
and awakening its start is a vivid flash of sound
Here is the complete artist of whom all these other birds
are but hints and studies bright startling assured of great
compass and power it easily dominates all other notes
the harsher chur-r-r-r-rg notes serve as foil to her surpassing brilliancy
We have no bird-voice so piercing and loud with such flexibility
full-throated harmony and long-drawn cadences
though we have songs of more melody tenderness
and plaintiveness
Note: Every word in this poem is drawn from ‘A Hunt for the Nightingale’ in Fresh
Fields by John Burroughs (Cambridge, Mass: The Riverside Press, 1896).
There have been some slight edits. Thanks to John Seed.
Theolonius Monk
We always get the Nightingales we deserve - Ben Mandelson
Perhaps it is a desire
to confound
human expectation
Rhythmically consistent
long whistles
then trills
& clicks shift
& divergence
sometimes what we call
music is not the real music
Back in the start house
an invisible border
east transposes to west
unkempt green space
melodious
Sending Lady Load
even then out of kilter
a sequence at odds
Situate in soundscape
trees sound
like rolling waves
Some think the more
you know
the deeper the experience
Seek the unattainable
the absent
the beautiful puzzle
Acknowledgements to David Rothenberg
_________________
Andrew Taylor is the author of two collections with Shearsman Books, 'Radio Mast Horizon' (2013) and 'March' (2017). His latest publications are 'at first it felt like flying' a collaboration with Charlie Baylis, which is a PBS Summer Selection 2019 and 'The Lowdeine Chronicles', with Nick Power. He lives and works in Nottingham, where he is a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing. www.andrewtaylorpoetry.com.