There are a variety of poetry and prose pieces devoted to imagining what animals think and say. Something I want you to notice about today’s poem from Samuel Taylor Coleridge is that “my Love” has no gender. Coleridge could as easily be writing about a male and female dove or this trio of eagles:
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Eagles are not one of the birds poets have traditionally associated with love (perhaps due to their serious faces?), but they are a species that “mate for life” — behavior humans associate with love — returning to the same nest to produce and raise young with the same co-parent(s) year after year.
Not all the birds named in this poem mate for life, so whether he meant to or not, I like to think Coleridge is celebrating a variety of loves here, and not just long-term monogamous love.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Answer to a Child’s Question
Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove,
The Linnet and Thrush say, “I love and I love!”
In the winter they’re silent—the wind is so strong;
What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving—all come back together.
But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he—
“I love my Love, and my Love loves me!”
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Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove,
The Linnet and Thrush say, “I love and I love!”
In the winter they’re silent—the wind is so strong;
What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving—all come back together.
But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he—
“I love my Love, and my Love loves me!”
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