A father’s love
It’s that time of the year now, in late April, when our ornithologists, twitchers and birdwatchers, or indeed anyone with more than a passing interest in our feathered friends will tell you that the focus now shifts very much for the birds towards their next generation. They themselves, having somehow survived the long winter, have secured, if necessary (some species mate for life) a mate, have made a few tweaks to the nest, and now begins their main purpose on the planet. The survival of their species.
For the next few weeks until very early autumn it’s all about the offspring. The parents you see in three or four months time will be a rag-ball outfit. Scrawny and spent. Feathers like an ill-fitting coat. Exhausted and close to death. But for now, they will strive and drive to mate, to lay, to incubate. To hatch, to wean, to feed, to rear, to fatten. To nurture, to protect and to teach. Then the new wings will spread, and off they will fly. Empty nesters left behind. Not unlike ourselves, perhaps?
Well yes, true, but not completely. And here lies the crucial difference. Unlike ourselves, they have the ability, whether part of evolution or not, to forget. To fully move on. They cut the chord and sever the link for keeps. The offspring become fully fledged strangers. Us humans do not.
Yes, all too often with our own little chicks, we are required to dish out the tough love, dole out the lessons for life, shout and scream, howl and holler, swear we’re on the verge of losing the plot, but at the end of the day, when all comes to all, there remains, the bond. That uncontrollable bond that for the greater part, makes us somewhat unique. And it lends us the ability to feel and express those wonderful human traits that are the kernel of this beautiful poem, forgiveness and remorse.
Coventry Patmore, (18231896) from London, England, wrote ‘The Toys’ in response to an occasion when he felt deep regret having severely chided and slapped his motherless son before bedtime. When visiting the bedroom later on, he finds not alone has the boy cried himself to sleep but has neatly laid out, beside his sleeping head, his small toys and bits and bobs as a source of stability and comfort.
The poet is desperately moved, and filled with remorse and sadness for his part in the punishment. As befitting his feelings of emotional confusion, the poem has a loose form and rhythm, but the delicate tone and soft rhymes here of the opening two stanzas capture wonderfully the mood and the image. Be warned, the onset of a tear or two is not uncommon!
MY little Son, who looked from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him, and dismissed With hard words and unkissed,
(His Mother, who was patient, being dead).
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a redveined stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart.
Beautifully written. It draws from the reader or the listener an enormous, emptying sigh. We can feel for both the father and the son.
Whether we be on the receiving end of the wrath of those we may worship and love, or find ourselves the dealer of the seemingly cold heartless hurt, we remain capable of empathy and understanding, of kindness, forgiveness, tenderness and love. Our human bond that separates us from the birds!