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Merrily swinging on briar and ****,
  Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
  Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.
        Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
        Spink, spank, spink,
Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
        Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed,
  Wearing a bright, black wedding-coat;
White are his shoulders, and white his crest,
  Hear him call in his merry note,
        Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
        Spink, spank, spink,
Look what a nice, new coat is mine;
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
        Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
  Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
  Broods in the grass while her husband sings:
        Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
        Spink, spank, spink,
Brood, kind creature, you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.
        Chee, chee, chee.

Modest and shy as a nun is she;
  One weak chirp is her only note;
Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he,
  Pouring boasts from his little throat,
        Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
        Spink, spank, spink,
Never was I afraid of man,
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can.
        Chee, chee, chee.

Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
  Flecked with purple, a pretty sight:
There as the mother sits all day,
  Robert is singing with all his might,
    Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
    Spink, spank, spink,
Nice good wife, that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.
    Chee, chee, chee.

Soon as the little ones chip the shell,
  Six wide mouths are open for food;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
  Gathering seeds for the hungry brood:
    Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
    Spink, spank, spink,
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
    Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln at length is made
  Sober with work, and silent with care,
Off is his holiday garment laid,
  Half forgotten that merry air:
    Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
    Spink, spank, spink,
Nobody knows but my mate and I,
Where our nest and our nestlings lie,
    Chee, chee, chee.

Summer wanes; the children are grown;
  Fun and frolic no more he knows,
Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum drone;
  Off he flies, and we sing as he goes,
        Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
        Spink, spank, spink,
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
        Chee, chee, chee.
Donall Dempsey Feb 2018
THE VERY THING IT WAS REQUIRED TO BE SHOWN
( for J.L )

"I like birds
more than books."

a young Edward
Thomas thinks

scribbling it
in bad Latin

on the fly leaf of
an algebra book.

A chaffinch chuckles.

"Vink...vink...vink!" it urges
in a regional accent.

"Fringilla Coelebs!"
Edward addresses it.

"Sheld-appel...spink..blue cap!"
the bird disowns its names

content with being
itself and itself

only.

It looks as if it has
just stepped out of the 15th century

illuminated maunuscript
The Shelbourne Missal.

"A caterpillar skeletonising a leaf
mmm...breakfast mefinks!"

The year  1895
madly in love with its own

sunlight
never such sunlight

as this
the window holds the scene

as if it were
a living painting.

The bird behind the glass
poetry in just being.

The torture of
an algebra class

"Quod erat demonstrandum."
***Reading Jean Moorcroft Wilson's wonderful biography EDWARD THOMAS -FROM ADLESTROP TO ARRAS. I was struck by the tiny detail of the algebra book. A chaffinch had just landed on our bird table and had its fill of suet. So I imagined Thomas longing for escape from algebra in the glory of this common bird. The chaffinch is of course busy being a chaffinch and busy eating its favourite food...a juicy defoliating caterpillar. It has no notion of its human names and only knows the poetry of being itself.

The title comes from the Greek translation of the phrase rather than the Latin ( which yields, "what was to be demonstrated")which methinks is more apt.

To myself in the De La Salle Academy in Kildare in an equally sunny day in my own time...it was always...Quite Easily Done! Alas Algebra and all its Mathematical kin were never kind to me and it was never easily done.

The chaffinch was once popular as a caged song bird and large numbers of wild birds were trapped and sold. At the end of the 19th century trapping even depleted the number of birds in London parks. In Britain the practice of keeping chaffinches as pets declined after the trapping of wild birds was outlawed by the Wild Birds Protection Acts of 1880 to 1896.

In 1882 the English publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton issued a guide on the care of caged birds and included the recommendation:

"To parents and guardians plagued with a morose and sulky boy, my advice is, buy him a chaffinch."

Competitions were held where bets were placed on which caged chaffinch would repeat its song the greatest number of times. The birds were sometimes blinded with a hot needle in the belief that this encouraged them to sing.

The chaffinch is still a popular pet bird in some European countries. In Belgium, for example, the traditional sport of Vinkenzetting pits male chaffinches against one another in a contest for the most bird calls in an hour.

Hardy's THE BLINDED BIRD rails against this habit of blinding in order to sing more fully.

"Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird."

In Irish it is Rí-rua...red king or king of the wild. As well as it's blue crown it has rusty red underparts or underpants as my Uncle Michael called them which would account for the rusty or red part of its name.
***

For half a day there was now a world of snow, a myriad flakes falling, a myriad rising, and nothing more than the sound of rivers; and now a world of green undulating hills that smiled in the lap of the grey mountains, over which moved large clouds, sometimes tumultuous and grey,  sometimes  white and slow, but always fringed with fire. When the snow came, the mountains dissolved and were not. When the mountains were born again out of the snow, the snow seemed but to have polished the grass,  and put a sharper sweetness in the song of the thrush and the call of the curlew, and left the  thinnest of cirrus clouds upon the bare field, where it clung only to the weeds.

Edward Thomas – BEAUTIFUL WALES( 1905)

“….words of landscape…landscapes are what I seem to be  made for…nearly all  of it without humanity except what it may owe to a lanky shadow of myself – I stretch over big landscapes just as my shadow does at dawn…”

Letter to Bottomley
skyy omalley Jun 2020
ed,,zinger suivante,,tels handknits finish,,cagefuls basinlike bag octopodan,,imbossing vaporettos rorid easygoingnesses nalorphines,,benzol respond washerwomen bristlecone,,parajournalism herringbone farnarkeled,,episodically cooties,,initiallers bimetallic,,leased hinters,,confidence teetotaller computerphobes,,pinnacle exotically overshades prothallia,,posterior gimmickry brassages bediapers countertrades,,haslet skiings sandglasses cannoli,,carven nis egomaniacal,,barminess gallivanted,,southeastward,,oophoron crumped,,tapued noncola colposcopical,,dolente trebbiano revealment,,outworked isotropous monosynaptic excisional moans,,enterocentesis jacuzzi preoccupations,,hippodrome outward googs,,tabbises undulators,,metathesizing,,sharia prepostor,,neuromast curmudgeons actability,,archaise spink reddening miscount,,madmen physostigmin statecraft neurocoeles bammed,,tenderest barguests crusados trust,,manshifts darzis aerophones,,reitboks discomposingly,,expandors,,monotasking galabia,,pertinents expedients witty,,chirographies crachach unsatisfactoriness swerveless,,flawed sepulchred thanksgiver scrawl skug,,perorate stringers gelatine flagstones,,chuses conceptualization surrejoined,,counterblasts rache,,numerative,,delirifacients methylthionine,,mantram dynamist atomised,,eternization percalines hryvnias pragmatizing,,reproachfulnesses telework nowts demoded revealer,,burnettize caryopteris subangular wirricows,,transvestites sinicized narcissus,,hikers meno,,degassing,,postcrises alikenesses,,sycophancy seroconverting insure,,yantras raphides cliftiest bosthoon,,zootherapy chlorides nationwide schlub yuri,,timeshares castanospermine backspaces reincite,,coactions cosignificative palafitte,,poofters subjunctions,,aquarian,,theralite revindicating,,cynosural permissibilities narcotising,,journeywork outkissed clarichords troutier,,myopias undiverting evacuations snarier superglue,,deaminise infirmaries teff hebephrenias,,brainboxes homonym lancelet,,lambitive stray,,inveigled,,acetabulums atenolol,,dekkos scarcer flensed,,abulias flaggers wammul boastfully,,galravitch happies interassociation multipara augmentations,,teratocarcinomata coopting didakai infrequently,,hairtails intricacy usuals,,pillorise outrating,,cataphoresis,,furnishings leglen,,goethite deflate butterburs,,phoneticising winiest hyposulphuric campshirts,,chainfalls swimmings roadblocked redone soliloquies,,broking mendaciousness parasitisms counterworld,,unravellings quarries passionately,,onomatopoesis repenting,,ramequin,,mopboard euphuistically,,volta sycophantized allantoides,,bors bouclees raisings sustaining,,diabolist sticks dole liltingly,,curial bisexualisms siderations hemolysed,,damnabilities unkenneling halters,,peripheral congaing,,diatomicity,,foolings repayments,,hereabouts vamosed him,,slanters moonrock porridgy monstruous,,heartwood bassoonist predispositions jargoon dominances,,timidest inalienable rewearing inevitably,,entreating retiary tranquillizing,,uniparental droogs,,allotropous,,forzati abiogenetic,,obduration exempted unifaces,,epilating calisaya dispiteously coggles,,vestmented flukily ignifying complished hiccupy municipalize,,pentagraphs parcels sutler excavates,,stardust miscited thankfulness,,fouter pertused,,overpacks,,guarishes hylotheism,,pi Fresh blood seeps through the line parting her skin and slowly colors her breast red. I begin to hyperventilate as my compulsion grows. The images won’t go away. Images of me driving the knife into her flesh continuously, ******* her body with the blade, making a mess of her. My head starts going crazy as my thoughts start to return. Shooting pain assaults my mind along with my thoughts. This is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. How could I ever let myself think these things? But it’s unmistakable. The lust continues to linger through my veins. An ache in my muscles stems from the unreleased tension experienced by my entire body. Her Third Eye is drawing me closer.
Donall Dempsey Feb 2023
THE VERY THING IT WAS REQUIRED TO BE SHOWN
( for Jeremy )

"I like birds
more than books."

a young Edward
Thomas thinks

scribbling it
in bad Latin

on the fly leaf of
an algebra book.

A chaffinch chuckles.

"Vink...vink...vink!" it urges
in a regional accent.

"Fringilla Coelebs!"
Edward addresses it.

"Sheld-appel...spink..blue cap!"
the bird disowns its names

content with being
itself and itself

only.

It looks as if it has
just stepped out of the 15th century

illuminated maunuscript
The Shelbourne Missal.

"A caterpillar skeletonising a leaf
mmm...breakfast mefinks!"

The year  1895
madly in love with its own

sunlight
never such sunlight

as this
the window holds the scene

as if it were
a living painting.

The bird behind the glass
poetry in just being.

The torture of
an algebra class

"Quod erat demonstrandum."
I'll blow a bubble around you
and you'll float away
then you'll be out of my hair
for the rest of the day

Don't try to stop me
Im warning you
I have a new gun
called the zuber-de-****

It may sputter and spink
it may weight a ton
but who cares as long
as it gets the job done.
Trout Sep 2019
My adolescent paparazzis just all come and say
To counter the spink and magic music is a getaway
My view is a heathen
The club is alive and all
The funniest vision
Where trumpeters play such a song
My feet are cold
What should I do
My essence body is calling you

No forgiving
The underworld is for the hide-and-seek
Try, try, traitor
For the one who doesn’t write a song
Lose, lose, winner
The harp of luna can’t be traded off
Go to dinner
Driving out and sing a different song

Come a bit later
Trying to see
A picture of boys that soothe and cancer and see lots of taxidermy
The tie and newspaper
My amusement is great
The poison capital diamond
Tied to what’s on

Dripping harmonies and symptoms
Grabbing tools and violins
Thumping banners of all wisdom
Grabbing children funny kids
The pincher grabs a thunder
I would like to have fun in a perilous game
The sun is raging backwards
My understatement
Donall Dempsey Dec 2023
THE VERY THING IT WAS REQUIRED TO BE SHOWN
( for J.L )

"I like birds
more than books."

a young Edward
Thomas thinks

scribbling it
in bad Latin

on the fly leaf of
an algebra book.

A chaffinch chuckles.

"Vink...vink...vink!" it urges
in a regional accent.

"Fringilla Coelebs!"
Edward addresses it.

"Sheld-appel...spink..blue cap!"
the bird disowns its names

content with being
itself and itself

only.

It looks as if it has
just stepped out of the 15th century

illuminated maunuscript
The Shelbourne Missal.

"A caterpillar skeletonising a leaf
mmm...breakfast mefinks!"

The year  1895
madly in love with its own

sunlight
never such sunlight

as this
the window holds the scene

as if it were
a living painting.

The bird behind the glass
poetry in just being.

The torture of
an algebra class

"Quod erat demonstrandum."
Reading Jean Moorcroft Wilson's wonderful biography EDWARD THOMAS -FROM ADLESTROP TO ARRAS. I was struck by the tiny detail of the algebra book. A chaffinch had just landed on our bird table and had its fill of suet. So I imagined Thomas longing for escape from algebra in the glory of this common bird. The chaffinch is of course busy being a chaffinch and busy eating its favourite food...a juicy defoliating caterpillar. It has no notion of its human names and only knows the poetry of being itself.

The title comes from the Greek translation of the phrase rather than the Latin ( which yields, "what was to be demonstrated")which methinks is more apt.

To myself in the De La Salle Academy in Kildare in an equally sunny day in my own time...it was always...Quite Easily Done! Alas Algebra and all its Mathematical kin were never kind to me and it was never easily done.

The chaffinch was once popular as a caged song bird and large numbers of wild birds were trapped and sold. At the end of the 19th century trapping even depleted the number of birds in London parks. In Britain the practice of keeping chaffinches as pets declined after the trapping of wild birds was outlawed by the Wild Birds Protection Acts of 1880 to 1896.

In 1882 the English publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton issued a guide on the care of caged birds and included the recommendation:

"To parents and guardians plagued with a morose and sulky boy, my advice is, buy him a chaffinch."

Competitions were held where bets were placed on which caged chaffinch would repeat its song the greatest number of times. The birds were sometimes blinded with a hot needle in the belief that this encouraged them to sing.

The chaffinch is still a popular pet bird in some European countries. In Belgium, for example, the traditional sport of Vinkenzetting pits male chaffinches against one another in a contest for the most bird calls in an hour.

Hardy's THE BLINDED BIRD rails against this habit of blinding in order to sing more fully.

"Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird."

In Irish it is Rí-rua...red king or king of the wild. As well as it's blue crown it has rusty red underparts or underpants as my Uncle Michael called them which would account for the rusty or red part of its name.
***

For half a day there was now a world of snow, a myriad flakes falling, a myriad rising, and nothing more than the sound of rivers; and now a world of green undulating hills that smiled in the lap of the grey mountains, over which moved large clouds, sometimes tumultuous and grey,  sometimes  white and slow, but always fringed with fire. When the snow came, the mountains dissolved and were not. When the mountains were born again out of the snow, the snow seemed but to have polished the grass,  and put a sharper sweetness in the song of the thrush and the call of the curlew, and left the  thinnest of cirrus clouds upon the bare field, where it clung only to the weeds.

Edward Thomas – BEAUTIFUL WALES( 1905)

“….words of landscape…landscapes are what I seem to be  made for…nearly all  of it without humanity except what it may owe to a lanky shadow of myself – I stretch over big landscapes just as my shadow does at dawn…”

Letter to Bottomley

— The End —