Lord Dunsany, To The Birds

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany died 53 years ago today, 25th October 1957. I visited Dunsany's grave in the church yard in Shoreham in the summer and spent a day walking among the hills and woods that he knew. A series of essays about my Dunsany Pilgrimage will be posted on this blog in time but for the moment, and to mark the day of the death of a man who loved wildfowling as much as he loved writing, I post his poem To The Birds.

TO THE BIRDS

When I am dead and the bird

That through the long reeds go,

Though they hear no man's words,

Those Wandering Birds Will know.

The duck, the snipe, the teal,

All folk of heath and fen,

The news will hear or feel

Before it comes to men.

In ferns where woodcock hide,

By bays where widgeon lie,

And where the bog goes wide

And gleaming to the sky.

By Many a reedy lake

And many a mile of ling

Its speed will overtake

The golden plover's wing;

By glint of moon or star,

Through darkness among trees

The news will wend as far

As the far-travelling geese;

And grouse on windy moors,

Jack-snipe on coloured moss,

And birds the love lone shores

Far north will know the loss.

And nought have I to say

Against their myriad voice

Arising on that day

To sing, "Rejoice! Rejoice!"