THE DEATH OF THE BIRD by A. D. Hope

THE DEATH OF THE BIRD – Alec Derwent Hope

                A.D. Hope was an Australian poet. He was endowed with a high degree of sympathy for all living creatures. “The Death of the Bird” is a good example for the poet’s ability to describe the experience of the bird from inside; the poet describes the migration of the bird, its living through a warm climate and its isolation in death.

                The poet is talking about a bird towards the end of her life. It is a migratory bird which moves seasonally from one place to another, in search of food and warmth. Since the winter has arrived the bird’s love for the warmer region makes her to remain the path to such a place. She remembers the entire navigation details by heart.

                There is a predetermined place on another hemisphere which means on the other half of the earth. It seems that she is being called to appear there. Again and again she had gone there, she has gone there so many times that it is almost like her other home. What looks like going away is actually is in a way coming home.

After migrating, the memory of the earlier place becomes a passion with which she feeds her young babies and builds the nest with straw to live in. Her heart is possessed with the memory of the other place. It is haunting her like ghosts. Her love to come back again is termed as ‘exiled love’.

Almost from the point of view of a bird the poet is trying to show how the feeling of missing in the bird had caused her to see the mirage of valleys on the sands. The image is illusionary, as the palm trees shadow is different from the way it should be. The bird could feel the cold air coming out of the arch of the temple or a palace.

Slowly the call to go to the other place grows stronger in the bird and she can’t resist it anymore. Initially the feeling was delicate but now it is full of despair. The bird is able to forsake the comforts and her fear which were stopping her. She finally decides to fly into the vast nature.

The bird now looks stupid and weak against the vast region into which she has entered, her existence becomes unnoticeable. She becomes alone. The poet refers at the sky through the metaphor of ‘blue unfriendliness of space’. The sky seems a unsuitable place for her weak body.

The bird had traveled far; she can sense that the season for which she came is somewhere nearby. Suddenly due to her weakness that invisible thread which was guiding her path is broken. The instinct that navigated the bird so far died suddenly.

The bird is trying her best to find a way but the whole world has suddenly become trackless. Without her instinct the light seem to turn wilderness and the bird could not find any sign of her path. The earth’s design is so vast that it makes fun of the birds’ small wisdom.

The poet is pointing toward the eastern valleys form which the darkness is raising. Not only the sun is setting but that bird’s life is also coming to an end. The bird has lost her way totally. The winds are striking her forcefully in a way, as if they are hungry. It ultimately kills the bird.

The nature which is so great feels no grief for any death. It doesn’t even threaten anyone’s life intentionally. It is simply indifferent. The death of the bird is but a tiny burden for the earth. It receives her body indifferently.

Thus this poem deals with the idea of death against the vast difference of universe to it. It is shown through the life of a migratory bird.

---HAPPY LEARNING----