Animals and Nature

To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was tautology.

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said: “It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard.”

Who said “Peacock Pie”? The old king to the sparrow: Who said “Crops are ripe”? Rust to the harrow.

The pebble is a perfect creature equal to itself mindful of its limits filled exactly with a pebbly meaning

His life was gentle, and the elements

a crystal willow, a poplar of water, a tall fountain the wind arches over, a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still, a course of a river that turns, moves on, doubles back, and comes full circle, forever arriving:

are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night.

How about ‘Cloudcuckooland’?

Whenever you observe an animal closely, you have the feeling that a person sitting inside is making fun of you.

The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

 

Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.

 

And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens.

Until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.

Nature is a temple, where, from living pillars, confused words are sometimes allowed to escape; here man passes, through forests of symbols, which watch him with looks of recognition.

The heavy bear who goes with me,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

[ Advice to a friend whose ailing cat had to be “put away” :] Have you tried curiosity?

John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought All that we did, all that we said or sang Must come from contact with the soil, from that Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.

Booming and booming of the new-come bee.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark. It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold Creation in my foot Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly— I kill where I please because it is all mine.

In the parched path I have seen the good lizard (one drop of crocodile) meditating.