Ode on a Summer's Day
Word-Bird
John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816)
The clouds are celebrating, dancing, glad
in all their tumbliness beside the lake;
the Wych elms stand voluminously clad
in shifting shades of green. They sway and shake
their limbs to all the music of the scene:
the cooing of the pigeon flock above;
the quacking of the mallards on the banks;
soft snorts the swans are uttering, serene
through this first chapter in their book of love –
next year, their young will glide beneath their flanks.
The fishermen, while bringing in their net,
are whistling to the pretty pen and cob;
the Friesians make a humorous quartet
of breath and chewing, chomping, slobber-glob.
The donkey pants a little as he heaves
the cart, its passenger a laughing girl;
her happiness resounds around the grounds
of Wivenhoe, the water, grass and leaves
and swans and cows and clouds in joyful whirl,
foretelling bliss with all these summer sounds.
​
- - -
Fliss: Welcome, dear Word-Bird, to Well Met, the third issue! And thanks for accepting the invitation to return.
​
W.-B.: You are welcome, FT. And well met indeed!
F: Thank you, W.-B.! So, here we have a poem inspired by a picture, or an ’ekphrasis’, to use the term.
W.-B.: That is correct! For readers who are new to the word, it is Greek, from ek (out) and phrasis (speak), so the general sense of providing a description. I love learning about Art and I am always happy to write in this form!
​
F: And your enthusiasm certainly comes across in the poem, W.-B.! Let’s start with the content. It’s noticeable to me that, as well as observing the picture with a rather keen eye, you were engaged in hearing it too, in a sense. Was that your process here?
​
W.-B.: Very much so! As soon as I looked at the picture, I began to hear its music too. There is so much movement in the clouds, for example, it was impossible not to enter the park and enjoy it. I even felt the sun and the breeze a little. Art holds such power at times.
​​
F: I agree, W.-B., and I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on the bird sounds through the first stanza. We also have a little romance there too, with the swans’ book of love. Perhaps you were inspired by our own local swan family?
​
W.-B.: Yes! … Yes! … But I also wished to add the romance as it seemed in keeping with something I had read about the picture. This is, it was the final painting John Constable created before his wedding to his long-term love, Mary Bicknell. He used the money he received from the sale of the painting to fund the wedding day. So here, with the swans, and later, with the bell-like sonics, I hoped to bring out in particular the joyful upcoming union.
​
F: How lovely, W.-B. Yes, ’resounds around the grounds’, then ’cows … clouds … sounds’, quite bell-like! Let’s take a quick look at the meter now. This is iambic pentameter, I believe?
​
W.-B.: It is! There is a quirk in ’soft snorts’, but I am hopeful readers will be generous and read ’soft’ as, well, soft here. I think of IP as the classic meter of English verse, after our friend William Shakespeare. Of course this is an ode rather than a sonnet, but I include ’Summer’s Day’ as a little hommage in the title. Naturally I shall never attain the heights of the Bard, and this poem pertains to heteroromance in contrast to his famous sonnet, as we learned in the discussion with John earlier. But there is such joy in writing in rhythm ’n’ rhyme!
​​
F: I agree, W.-B. It brings me great happiness too! And I hope this issue of WM has brought happiness for our readers. Many thanks to you all for reading, and to all our contributors. We hope to return in July, not least to meet the lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets! I have a feeling we’ll have a very interesting time.
​​​
- - -
Word-Bird has been Colombine Companion to FT since 2011, after FT sustained a life-changing injury in hospital. This affected her right knee and somewhat impacted her brain too. Over the years, W.-B. has become increasingly well known in poetry circles and is happy to be on pleasant terms with a number of excellent poets.
- - -
​
