Publication Date: July, 2021
Location: PoetCrit, (Vol.34 No.2 July, 2021), out of New Delhi and available here.
Genesis: I wrote this almost exactly three years ago, inspired by events taking place in the beautiful place where I live. It seems it’s taken a long time to see the light of day, yet it also seems perfect to be arriving on this site in September (because the site has been misbehaving for the last month or so), right around the time that the same events are playing out again.
UPDATE:
I recently received an unsolicited (and rather beautiful) review of this poem from a Dr. Rajamouly Katta, Professor of English from Telangana, India. Scroll down to read the entire piece, below the poem.
The late September morning When I stepped out and realised That the last of the swallows Had left for the winter, I went back to bed and wept. Wept for the loss of friends, For the end of a glorious summer, For skies no longer cleaved Into graceful arcs, For the reminder of passing time With nothing to show. Early the following morning I leapt out of bed At the cries of geese And saw fifty or more Flying low over my cottage In a perfect V formation, In a perfect start to any day. In a perfect start to autumn.
A Critical Interpretation of Robert Best’s Poem,
“A Perfect Start to Autumn”
Robert Best as a poet, critic and reviewer is well-known in the literary firmament. His poetry deals with a rich variety of concepts. His poem, ‘A Perfect Start to Autumn’ draws my attention to its merits. I feel like recording my response to the poet’s intense feelings, profound emotions and candid references to the images of seasons and birds in nature.
The poem, ‘A Perfect Start to Autumn” portrays the poet’s personal, emotional experiences. The poet loves the sights and sounds of birds in nature. His poem is aptly called ‘bird-poem’. In the poem, he employs images in his accurate and minute descriptions with references to time and space to render it dramatic effect.
The poem starts with the morning scene, ‘The late September morning’ that captures the reader’s attention to the poet’s consciousness of time with its powers. The poet further refers to ‘Early the following morning’. The poem reaffirms the fact that time with its incessant flow brings about changes in nature. His references to seasons: ‘winter’, ‘summer’ and ‘autumn’ in the poem throws light on the seasonal cycle every year in time’s flow.
All the scenes in the poem are striking and the reader becomes one with them. The pen pictures of mornings are vivid and clear, vibrating and arresting. The scenes of two mornings make the reader understand the snapshot details of the poet’s moods, emotions and feelings. The poet’s cottage with his bed in it is another glaring image. The image of birds is so lovely that the poet can never be away from watching birds and hearing their sounds. The ship of his imagination that sails in the two stanzas of the poem carries his moods, feelings and emotions for the reader.
Birds are migratory for their living in comfort and joy. He loves birds most like the Romantics. He enjoys the sights and sounds of birds. This is a bird poem like Wordsworth’s ‘To the Cuckoo’, Shelley’s ‘Ode to a Skylark’ and Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale’.
In the first stanza, Best depicts the poet’s unhappy emotions when the last of the swallows has left. He goes back to bed and weeps for the loss of bird-friends,
Wept for the loss of friends,
For the end of a glorious summer,
For skies no longer cleaved
Into graceful arcs
There is a shift in the poet’s moods in the second stanza. The poet is in a pleasant mood the early next morning when he hears the geese fluttering and crying low over his cottage,
Early the following morning,
I leapt out of bed
At the cries of geese
Overwhelmed with joy, the poet comes out to have the sight of the birds. He finds geese in a large number flying ahead in a perfectly artistic way,
And saw fifty or more
Flying low over my cottage
In a perfect V formation
The flight of geese in the sky in a perfect V formation bestows on him ecstasy. He finds the birds flying ahead in the sky to the place of comfort and joy. The sights and sounds of birds fill his heart with bliss and solace.
The love of the poet for the birds is aptly comparable to that of Wordsworth to picture birds, ‘ethereal minstrel’ and ‘a pilgrim of the sky’ in the poem, ‘To the Cuckoo’ and that of Shelley to refer to a skylark as ‘Blithe the New-comer’ that outpours sonorities ‘from heaven or near it’ in the poem, ‘Ode to a Skylark’. The birds with their melodies inspire the Romantic poets to write poetry with rich imagination.
Like Wordsworth, Best loves the sights and sounds of birds for bliss and solace, harmony and peace. When he does not find swallows, he feels deeply unhappy. He goes back to bed and weeps for the loss of bird-friends. In the next stanza, the sight of geese bestows on the poet all delight to bloom smiles on his lips. He finds solace and peace at their sights and sounds. He rises from his bed in the most exultant mood.
As a Romantic poet, Best has a sight at birds He enjoys watching their flight in V formation, listening to their sounds and watching their beautiful feathers. He portrays his keen observation in the flight of birds like swallows and geese. The poet loves the lovely movements of birds like the flying of geese in the sky in V formation,
Flying low over my cottage
In a perfect V formation
In a perfect start to any day.
Best loves birds as he treats them as his companions or friends in the way Wordsworth treats Nature as mother, teacher or brother in adoration. He is eager for his pleasure in the company of birds like the birds, the daffodils and other objects of nature for Wordsworth. He feels sorry when the sight of birds, his friends does not fall in his eyes for his eager pleasure. The situation, the most unwanted, makes him weep for the loss of the company of birds, realising
That the last of the swallows
Had left for the winter,
I went back to bed and wept.
Wept for the loss of friends,
Like the Romantic poets, Best refers to the seasons and their cycle of seasons. He refers to his special liking for summer. He feels for it when it is not there for him to enjoy its charms. The end of beauty is the end of everything for him,
For the end of glorious summer,
For skies no longer cleaved
Into graceful arcs,
The poet’s moods are linked with the seasonal cycle in nature as he is a poet with the consciousness of seasonal changes in nature in the inexorable flow of time. Man concurs with the cyclic changes of seasons as time with its invincible powers conquers man against his wish and choice for a particular season,
For the reminder of passing time
With nothing to show.
The poet is very much worried for the passing of summer when the birds like swallows migrate to the place for their comfort. There is a shift in his emotion as per his wish. To his solace, he further hears the cries of geese low over his cottage. He rises from bed in excessive joy and comes out of his cottage for his craved glimpse at the geese. He enjoys their flight in a perfect V formation. He expresses his joyful emotions when he glimpses the birds in flight, ‘Flying low over my cottage’. He appears to fly and join the geese, his companions in their flight for his delight.
Best is eager for pleasure in the sights and sounds of birds in all the seasons irrespective of his choice. Every minute with the sight of birds is the golden time for him. He loves birds as deeply as Wordsworth in ‘To the Cuckoo’,
I can listen to thee yet:
Can lie upon the plain
And listen till I do beget
The golden time
Like Best, Wordsworth craves for the sights, sounds and charms of birds for his bliss and peace again and again,
O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
Like Wordsworth, Best waits for the birds to fly in the sky in the season delightful for him. He is always in quest of enjoying the sights and sounds, flights and flutters of birds for his joys. The image of birds recurs and recurs in his poetry.
Best indirectly or directly concurs with the fact that annual seasons occur cyclic in the ceaseless flow of time. He, in eager pleasure, feels that the season of his choice with the beautiful sight of birds starts one day, ‘In a perfect start to any day’.
Like the Romantic poets, Best loves ‘glorious summer’ and ‘graceful arcs’ besides the birds and their nice movements in a perfect V formation.
The poet is successful in communicating his emotional experiences to the reader. The reader shares the poet’s emotional experiences becoming one with the poet,
I went back to bed and wept.
Wept for the loss of friends
The emotions of Best are much deeper than those of Robert Frost, marking a clear-cut contrast. Both recount their emotional experiences.
Frost expresses his feelings in the bird poem, ‘Come In’. He hears the song of a thrush. It all appears to welcome him to share its lament with him regarding the passing away of the sun and the changing of the season. He does not enter the dark woods nor does he share its lament. He enjoys the beauty of starry sky, staying outside,
But no, I was out for stars:
I would not come in
I meant and even if asked
And I hadn’t been.
Unlike Robert Best’s description of the flying of geese in ‘V formation’ with his warm relation to them, Frost describes the action of a duck’s swimming in a lake and admires its strength in the other bird poem, ‘The Most of It’. He shows no relation to it. He describes the habits of birds like the thrush to build its nest in the oven shape in comparison with the human craft but shows no relation to it.
The mingling of facts and fancy makes the poem, ‘A Perfect Start to Autumn’ delightful. Best delineates the facts: birds to migrate to the place of their comfort and joy and birds’ flying in V formation. It at the same time reflects the poet’s love for the calm and apparent beauty in nature and fancy for the most pleasant sight of birds’ flight in the sky ‘in a perfect V formation’, ‘glorious summer’, ‘graceful arcs’, and so on.
Best’s love for nature is pure and birds are friendly like Wordsworth’s one in motherly nature. Frost as a poet with his distinctive treatment to nature marks a distinction from Wordsworth and Best for their deep involvement in the beauty of nature. Frost springs from fancy to fact and fancy back to fact as he does not get engrossed into the beauty of nature like the Romantic poets. He watches beauty in nature and hears the song of thrush from outside the woods where as Best treats birds as friends with all love and becomes one with them at their sights and sounds, movements and flights.
Best is for nature with the sights, sounds and shines of birds seen outside of his cottage. He stays at his cottage but loves to live in nature, watching birds for bliss.
The simplicity and naturalness of the poem is the special merit of the poem. It reflects the apt and adept use of words and repetition of words like ‘wept’ and ‘perfect’ to express the fact, the intensity of his emotion. The title is ‘A Perfect Start to Autumn’ more appropriate than the one, ‘A Start to Autumn’ that does not sound enough to be appropriate.
Best’s references to seasons have symbolic significance. Autumn is a season of leaf-fall, the shedding of all beauties meant for the gaieties of viewers. Summer is a season of glories and joys. The birds in flight symbolize time with its endless flow.
Robert Best has risen to the heights of a poet par excellence by virtue of his imagination and vision. The poem, ‘A Perfect Start of Autumn’, he expresses his powerful emotions appealing to the heart. His deep and passionate love for birds shapes his creative imagination and poetic vision.
It is an excellent bird poem for the readers to enjoy its beauty sketched in the hues of words. It is affluent in images, lucid in language and deep in emotions. All the poetic skills shape it into a beautiful poem.
Works cited:
Best, Robert. ‘A Perfect Start to Autumn’, Poetcrit (Vol.34 No.2 July, 2021) 120