What to do for Easter? I had some rather attractive pictures of The Man of Sorrows from my brief holiday in Spain, but these are presumably still somewhere at Wantage Road with my lost camera. I tried to Share a video of Easter Parade, by the Blue Nile, but it didn’t want to be shared. I found a couple of interesting poems by A.H. Clough and A.E. Houseman, but these were discouraging and frankly atheistical. So here is an Easter poem of a sort, by Thomas Hardy. Back to nests again, I’m afraid.
‘I Watched A Blackbird”
I watched a blackbird on a budding sycamore
One Easter Day, when sap was stirring twigs to the core;
I saw his tongue, and crocus-coloured bill
Parting and closing as he turned his trill;
Then he flew down, seized on a stem of hay,
And upped to where his building scheme was under way,
As if so sure a nest were never shaped on spray.
(Wouldn’t you know it? I did try to take a picture of a blackbird to accompany this with my new, improved, replacement camera, but – although they are everywhere to be heard- not one is anywhere to be seen. But I’m sure you have probably seen one before.)
The Crimson Rambler 