{nat’l poetry month: blue}

The Blue Bird

The lake lay blue below the hill,
O’er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

Mary E. Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge was the grandniece of the famous Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She practically couldn’t help but be some kind of a writer, as Tennyson, Browning, Trollope and Ruskin — all the good old poets of the late 18th-early 19th century canon — were fixtures around the house as she was growing up. Unlike many Victorian women of her generation, she learned tons of languages, traveled, and wrote like a fiend… under a pseudonym, when she wrote poetry, of course — wouldn’t want to disgrace the family. She also wrote under E. Coleridge when she wrote her novels.

Meanwhile, across the waters in Dublin, another young person was raised up in his art. Charles Villier Stanford was the son of a cello-playing lawyer and a pianist mother, both of whom sang. While he was meant to be a lawyer, he also was composing little songs by the age of four — so, that law thing was not happening, and this was underscored when he won a scholarship to Cambridge. Stanford is known today for his skill with English “partsong.” Partsong is generally an a cappella arrangement in a four-part harmony of a secular song with an elevated, high-minded theme – nature, etc. It’s a very English thing, and it was super-popular in the 17th century, and then made a roaring comeback in the 19th. Modern partsong composers include famous men such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and Benjamin Britten. Holst and Vaughan Williams were Stanford’s students at Cambridge.

This lovely and haunting arrangement of Mary E. Coleridge’s poem is by John Rutter’s Cambridge Singers… I don’t suppose either one of them ever imagined I would still be singing their song years and years and years later in Scotland. Sadly, I don’t have a recording of our choir singing it, but it’s enough that, once upon a time, I did. ☺

2 Replies to “{nat’l poetry month: blue}”

  1. Tanita! I registered for this site! OMG. My bank doesn’t require as much work.

    Anyway, I really liked this post. About the author stuff always grabs me.

    If I can remember how to log in (I did keep a copy of material), you’ll be hearing from me again.

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