The Blossom

Merry, merry sparrow!
Under leaves so green
A happy blossom
Sees you, swift as arrow,
Seek your cradle narrow,
Near my bosom.
Pretty, pretty robin!
Under leaves so green
A happy blossom
Hears you sobbing, sobbing,
Pretty, pretty robin,
Near my bosom.

FORM

Two six line stanzas, with repetitions a feature of form which is detailed in “Structure” below. Very short poem.

STRUCTURE

The stanzas repeat the rhythm of first line in second; they exactly repeat the second and sixth lines, and the focus thereby is sharpened on the move from “Merry Merry…” to “Pretty Pretty” and from “Sparrow” (chirpy, resilient little buggers) to the “Robin” whose red breast suggests pierced hearts (and has now an association with Christmas via Xmas cards, but I believe this is a Victorian icon, not one current in Blake’s own time: I may be wrong!).

At the heart of each stanza, the business end of each stanza, is an observation of what a happy blossom sees, then hears. The structure of them poem thereby focuses attention upon the contrasting experiences of the blossom.

Don’t underestimate the force of that formulaic second line, either! It contextualises both birds very emphatically within an area of woodland which may normally be too shadowy for humans to observe much, but an area which is easily observable to a happy blossom.

LANGUAGE

I hear an allusion to a tradition of folksong or folk story in “Under leaves so green”, a tradition invoked as part of (perhaps) our more innocent myth-making and history-making in pubs and folk-clubs all over. If you feel this is so, the allusion may bring forth to your mind stories like “Who Killed Cock Robin”, and you may feel you are in the realm of folkloric riddle-me-ree with this poem.

Both poems begin with an apostrophe to the chosen bird, and sound some kind of reminder to each bird that the Blossom is perceiving what they are up to. I hear in this the voice of a child’s game (“I can see you”), possibly a kind nurse’s gentle taunt to a child trying to hide.

The repetition of Merry and Pretty is effective. The first intensifies the merriness (in my view) that we see in the sparrow, as well as signing aurally to us that we are in the realm of nursery rhymes, or children’s chapbook poetry, but the second can so easily suggest sarcasm or contempt, the kind of contempt we encounter in children’s games, the contempt for a victim that the voice of innocence can so cruelly convey.

Now, you know that a Blossom doesn’t think like that, or at all, merely accepts that, in Nature, you get some joy and energy and comfort (sparrow) and you get some hiding away to weep (robin). So the personification in this poem, and the fact that what the Blossom hears and feels is the main focus of this poem’s structuring, has the effect of toning that human voice right down, and nearly, but not quite, blotting out this vestigial portent of experienced voices deliberately causing pain by psychological bullying. (“pretty-pretty boy … I can hear you sobbing, sobbing”). Did you notice the power of that repetition of “sobbing”? Did you notice the force of the rhyme which ties that “sobbing sobbing” in so tightly to “Pretty Pretty”? The rhyme and repetition work really hard to make that vestigial suggestion of sarcasm and bullying here.

Contrast “sobbing sobbing” with the phrase in its place in the previous stanza now, and you will observe that, follow the verb and its pronoun object (“Sees you”), we find the exciting and energetic adverbial phrase “swift as arrow”, using a simile which may well work in the same semantic field as “sobbing sobbing” but which energises the activity of the sparrow, whereas the repeated “sobbing” locks the robin in his.

As a result of that effect, “Near my Bosom” version 2 is a flat, dull adverbial phrase: you are sobbing near my bosom accidentally. Just thought I’d mention it. Don’t know why I did.

But in version 1, “Near my Bosom” is far from an accidental phrase, and it’s adjectival: in effect, though not in grammatical function, it can be said to work adverbially too, as it suggests the reason for the swift as arrow seeking, namely, the ardency of a lover. Elements of danger are included in the word “narrow”, and that also helps build up the picture of the sparrow as a mini-Errol Flynn!

As an example of the use of repetition and contrast within the structure and the language of a poem, is there anything better in the English tongue than this one?