“Animal Farm” as a satire on the history of Soviet Union

“Animal Farm” was written by a prominent writer, Novelist, and Journalist “George Orwell” in 1947. He has many reasons behind this novel. It is believed that he wrote this novel to keep the scars of the Second World War and the history before that in the people’s mind as he saw the people forgetting the real history gradually. As a result of that he used the animals in the satire to ridicule and mock the Communism and its allies.

Most of the people think that this is a novel which tries to describe a group of animals that try to take control of the farm from men. It adds taste in reader’s mind when seeing the animals unite to fight against a common enemy. In fact, the gullibility of the animals annoys the reader. Eventually sadness pervades over the plight of the animals, especially Boxer.

While considering this novel as a satire, this is a masterpiece of “George Orwell” in which he constantly ridicules and criticizes the history of “Soviet Union” ruled by communism, with the fine use of the animals that he brings in the novel. Almost all the events in the “Animal Farm” portray the history of “Soviet Union” vividly and all the characters have the real characters in real. The writer tries to convey the noble message “The Capitalism was toppled by Communism, Eventually the Communism itself watered Capitalism”. 

With that introduction, I would like to enter into the history of “Soviet Union” before the revolution in 1917. Before the First World War “Soviet Union” was ruled by the king “Tsar Nicholas”. Capitalism was nourished by him and it flourished. Capitalism says that the “capital” will be in few people’s hand and the others will be working class. The majority of the people strived for the well being of a small group of capitalists. In similar terms, the people were suppressed to get the utmost benefit for few. This cultivated a sense of disapproval among the proletarians. On the other hand people didn’t want the king to enter into the world wars and worsen the prevailing pathetic situation in the country, but he did. So, this fed the unrest in the country which ended up in the denouncement of the king.

Soon after the revolution communism took control of the country. The revolutionary thought was led by Vladimir Lenin, but he died before his dream come true. Subsequently, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, the disciples of Lenin tried to get the leadership of the new born baby. They proclaimed “All human beings are equal; everyone should get the equal share in everything”. Mean while they both had a power struggle. Leon Trotsky expanded his sphere of influence through his fine speeches whereas Joseph Stalin kept his activities secretly to ally a force to overcome his enemies in the political arena. Joseph Stalin exiled Trotsky from the town and later he was assassinated by the order of Stalin.

Stalin demolished all the communist thoughts and almost implemented the capitalism. The people starved more than they did in monarchy. People thought that the revolution will bring the heaven to the earth, but it brought an antithesis. Finally, Stalin went through all the avenues of tyranny and become a worse dictator of the country.

On the other hand while having a glance on the plot summary of the “Animal Farm”, It will throw some light on the theme of the satire. The “Manor Farm” is under the control “Mr.Johnes”. He doesn’t feed the animals; beats them harshly; and over burdens them. No animal wants to have him there. So, Old major, the prize boar comes with the dream of the farm which is ruled by the animals themselves. As a result of this, the idea of rebellion is spread among the animals.
When the farmer leaves the animals unfed for certain days, it ends up in a rebellion. Subsequently, Mr.Johnes is chased from his place. The animals wish to have a heaven in the earth. They think that everything is going to be changed, but they don’t get what they wanted. 

In the post rebellion era, the pigs get the leadership. Among them Napoleon and Snowball are two prominent pigs who try to take the leadership which leads to a power struggle between them and ends in the exile of snowball by Napoleon.

In the climax, the pigs who are the controllers of the “Animal Farm” take the power and lead a tyrannical ruling in which the animals are unfed, over burdened, and exhausted. The animals preferred a heaven in the earth, but eventually they get a hell in the earth, which is tarnished by the same creatures like them.

Characters in the Animal Farm which represent the Communism

Animalism                                               Communism
Mr.Johnes                                                Tsar Nicholas
Old Major                                                 Karl Marx/ Vladimir Lenin
Napoleon                                                 Joseph Stalin
Mr.Pilkingto and Mr.Fredrick                       German and Britain
Snowball                                                  Leon Trotsky
Squealer                                                   Media
Boxer                                                       Working class
Moses                                                       Religion
Sugar candy mountain                               Heaven

Events in the “Animal Farm”

• Battle of Cowshed

Soon after the revolution the western allies tried to reinstate the rule of Nicholas in the country. There they came with all of their forces to fight against communist party, but they were defeated by the “Red Army”. This battle is explained as battle of cowshed in which the animals showed their unity. 

• Rebellion

The revolution took place in the history of “Soviet Union” in 1917. This revolution reasoned the “Bolsheviks”, the party of Lenin to rule the country. In this revolution the people fought against their common enemy. They were martyred in this process for the sake the well being of the country’s future. This is portrayed in “Animal Farm” when animals unite and chase the farmer “Mr.Johnes”.

• Collapse of the windmill

Windmill represents the five year plan which was initiated by Stalin to stabilize the economy of the country. In both places, the real and the satire, the Proletarians strived hard to change the dream into true. But it was collapsed and demolished by Mr.Johnes. Likewise the economy of “Soviet Union” was forced backward when Adolf Hitler tried to invade the country with all of his forces. 

• Confession of betrayal and prompt executions

Soon after the banishment of snowball many animals came forward to confess their conspiracy with snowball to assassinate Napoleon and accepted the execution. In Russia also most of the people were beheaded in the pretext of conspiring with the enemies of the country. It ended up in killing of millions of innocent people.

• Playing card game

In the climax of “Animal Farm” the pigs play a card game, holding alcohol in their hands with their human friends which breaks the commandments of “Two legs are bad and four legs or those who have wings are good” and “No animal shall drink alcohol”. The animals from outside of the ballroom peep into that, there they don’t recognize who are animals and who are human beings.

In “Soviet Union”, the capitalism was the common enemy for them. Hitler was the common for them. He killed many communists in the country. Later Joseph Stalin Signed “Tehran Convention” with “Roosvelt” and “Churchill”. This is a great betrayal of the communistic theories. As a result of this there the people don’t find any difference between communism and capitalism in the country.

death in life

“Death in Life” is the most appropriate title “Sithy Hamid” could have decided for her short story

“Death in Life” is a short story written by “Sithy Hamid”. She is a Sri Lankan writer. This story criticizes the customs followed by Muslim community. It is noteworthy here that the writer has the courage to criticize her own culture. She depicts the sufferings faced by a widow in the Muslim community in many ways through her emotional lines in the story. She tries to generalize the idea with the use of the pronoun “She” instead of giving a name for the protagonist.

With that I would like to enter in to the topic of my research. When the reader goes through the title of this short story, he will understand that the short story is going to deal with a person who suffers a lot in his life. Certainly, the title gives the complete idea to the reader about the plot. The writer “Sithy Hamid” has chosen the most appropriate title to convey her message to the readers. The title “Death in Life” proposes the idea of how a person dies when he lives in this world. If a person dies when he lives it means he faces a lot of unbearable circumstances. In this short story also the protagonist; a Muslim woman faces a lot of problems due to some customs followed by a sector of Muslim community.

It is compulsory on Muslim woman to live in seclusion for four months and ten days with abiding by some rules and regulations for the death of her husband. There are many implications behind this act. Due to the intrusion of superstitious beliefs among Muslims, this act has become a pain taking one on Muslim women. The short story is a real portrayal of the sufferings faced by a Muslim woman in her life after her husband’s death. The protagonist of the short story; a Muslim woman suffers a lot after the death of her husband. The rituals imposed on her give her pain; the people around her give her pain; the customs followed by the people give her pain, almost all the things around her inflict pain on her, as a result of this the protagonist becomes lifeless when living in this world. This death denotes the spiritual death, she mentally exists in this world, but physically she is no more here. This thought pervades in each line of the short story. Thus we can say that the writer “Sithy Hamid” has chosen the most appropriate title for her short story.

Soon after the death of the husband she is forced to pray; the people around the corpse of “Nazeer” call him body; they accuse her for the death of the man; they take her into a strange place.  The Protagonist shows her disapproval to their activities and hammers the people around her through the following words. She says “What are they doing to me? “Did you want this done to me? You must have, or else you wouldn’t have died so young leaving me to the vultures. These heartless dogs who will now pounce on the carcass of my life”. These words propose the idea that the protagonist already knows that she is going to die after the death of the husband.

When we take the place where she lives to observe the rituals and waits for four months and ten

days also equates a coffin where dead bodies were kept and buried in the graves. She is given a very small place which affords her presence only. She has only few things around her.

On the other hand, the colour “ white” shows many ideas about the plight of the woman.  The short story says that everything around her becomes “white” even the slippers and the mug. Her room is also painted with white, the sari she wears also white with white blouses. Protagonist says “The colour of life left me with my husband’s death. White is the colour of non-existence. Almost like an attempt to erase me from the face of the world”. Through these lines the writer suggests the non-existence of the protagonist, because she is forced to wear the colour that she doesn’t like. “White” is the colour of non-existence. It is all around her now after the husband’s death. That colour is covering her. “The colour of life left me with my husband’s death” when the protagonist says like this, it shows how she feels the emptiness in her life. She leads a battered and dry life without spiritual health. All these features about “White” proclaim that the protagonist is physically alive, but she is mentally dead.

Moreover, the people around her also don’t treat her as a human being. They don’t notice her presence, because she does not exist in here. Even though she is with them, they don’t even talk to her. In the short story it is mentioned that the people come there with the cluster of two or three and speak among themselves and leave the place; they pray the prayers that wouldn’t console them; they bring trays of food which is rarely served to her. All these occurrences show that the woman is not treated properly as a human who is still alive. By this also the writer takes the advantage of painting a vivid portrait to her title about the death of a living human being.

Apart from that, the protagonist is not given the freedom to express and the freedom to lead a happy life when “Nazeer” lives and after his death as well. We feel as if the word “Freedom” is lifted from the dictionary of the protagonist. When she lives with “Nazeer” she is compelled to live with the sister in law “Umu Naima”. “Umu Naima” is a cruel lady who tries to keep the control of the family and interfere in the matters of the couple. She doesn’t allow her to go wherever she wants to go with her husband. “A Muslim woman should stay at home, she would say, and I would cry for hours alone in my bedroom he had left me behind without a second thought”. The above mentioned lines propose that she is left at her room by “Nazeer” while she cries until he returns back home.

On the contrary when “Nazeer” dies also, she is obliged to live alone without associating anyone. There are two watchdogs that scrutinize her motions. She totally lives a life of a prisoner. All these things are imposed on her in the pretext of preventing her from seeing and meeting an unknown person. She totally denies this thought by saying “Do they really think that I will think of other men with my husband buried only few hours”. This thought also nourishes the title of the short story briefly.

While considering the narrative style also, we can get some important ideas which justify the most appropriate selection of the title for the short story. The story starts with the third person point of view at the beginning. At the middle, which deals with the sufferings of the widow, it moves to the first person. With the transformation of the point of view, the writer shows the pathetic situation of the widow. When the person who suffers states about his plight and suffering, it will be more effective than others relate that. At the end of the story it moves from first person to third person.

In a nutshell, it is clear that the writer has chosen the most suitable title to convey some important ideas about the plight of the Muslim widow who suffers because of the superstitious beliefs followed by a sector of the Muslim community. As the life she leads after the death of her husband totally changes in to dark side, she faces numerous problems. Everything and everyone turns against her, subsequently, she suffers a lot and becomes lifeless. She equates to a dead body spiritually. As these are the thought pervade the whole story, the writer has chosen the most appropriate title “Death in Life” for the short story.

Impermanent of nature is well illustrated in ‘Ode to Autumn’

In the following lines, I would like to analyze how the poet, John Keats portrays the “impermanent of nature” in his poem “Ode to autumn”. Ode generally refers to a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter and also it is a poem meant to be sung”.

“Ode to autumn” shows the maturity of the poetic career of John Keats. It is believed that this is the last poem of his life. The poet died after one year of writing this poem. So, the poet tries to embed the thought of “impermanent of nature and life” in his last poem as he knew that he want to stop writing after this. This very thought is clearly portrayed in his sonnet “When I have fears” as well. The poet initiates the sonnet with the following lines.

When I have fears that I may cease to be 
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

 

When we have a glance over the ode superficially, we can understand that the ode comprises of three stanzas. In the first stanza the poet deals with the fruitfulness and the maturity of autumn. In the second stanza he speaks about the mid autumn and the yields of it through personifying the autumn. In the last stanza he epics the twilight moment of the autumn and the beginning of spring with an ample use of audible imageries. So, the poet proposes the idea of impermanent of nature by stating the stages of autumn as it can be seen outwardly.

When we go deeply into the ode, it’s peculiar that the Impermanent of nature is stated in the very first line of the ode. The poet starts the ode with “The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. The word “Mist” shows the impermanent clearly, because the mist vanishes when the sun appears. Through that the poet proposes the idea of impermanent at the beginning of the ode.

In this short poem, the first stanza shows the ripeness and fruitfulness of autumn as the summer ended, the ending of summer gives birth to the autumn. The death of summer gives birth to the new born baby “autumn”. During the summer people went outings and the sunny days gave them a way to enjoy the life in the way it can be enjoyed. But now the summer is not there. The only thing they can see is the autumn and its bounties. None can wish to have the summer throughout the year, because it is not eternal. It has to end and the other season has to arrive, because the nature and season are transient. They are not everlasting. 

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

In the above lines the poet states that the bees assume that the warm day will never come and this season will not cease. They are enjoying the “Sweet Kernel” of the flowers. They have ample of flowers to get the honey from. So, they are in the imagination of everlasting autumn, but the poet implies a thought in these lines that the bees are in delusion. They wish to have the autumn forever, but it is passing. When the time comes, it has to keep going and leave the way to the upcoming one.  

In the second stanza, the poet passes his concentration to the harvesting and the activities in mid autumn. Mid autumn is the time of harvesting. Through personification the poet describes the autumn. The autumn is personified as the harvester, reaper, gleaner, and watcher of cyder-press. All the above mentioned works are under taken by the farmers in the mid autumn. The farmers harvest their paddy fields, they reap them, people glean and collect the left over, and they make juices from the fruits. While doing all these things they are rarely admired by the nature and autumn as they are very busy with their works. In the second stanza the poet put forward the idea that the autumn has done its part. It has given its yield to the people. The people harvested their paddy fields and they have kept them in safe places. Now it is the time for the autumn to depart, because someone is going to be present here and occupy the place of autumn.

“Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

thou watchest the last oozing hours”

The phrase “oozing hours” suggests as if the autumn is waiting patiently for the arrival of the winter. 

In the last stanza, there are many words and phrases which are related to death can be found, Such as soft-dying day, wailful choir, mourn, and wind lives and dies. All these words and phrases suggest the death, because death gives an end to the life. Death shows the fidelity and impermanent of life. The poet takes these words to describe the twilight moment of the autumn. Through the use of these words and phrases the poet shows the impermanent of autumn. It gives the idea that the autumn is going to leave the place, while making the creatures to yearn for that. 

Moreover! The "barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day," and "the light wind lives or dies" give premonition of mortality of the nature. It says that the day is dying and the gnats, lambs, crickets, and birds all seem to be aware of the approaching darkness. The "full-grown lambs" bleat as they understand their destiny, because the full-grown lambs are slaughtered at the end of the autumn. All these sounds are portrayed as the mourning of the creatures for the departure of the autumn. On the other hand it can be considered as the farewell of the creatures for the autumn and the premonition of them for the upcoming season.

On the other hand! The autumn will be followed by the cold and barrenness of winter, winter will in turn give way to a fresh spring. The seasons pass, the nature is impermanent. When the summer passes autumn falls, when autumn leaves the winter falls. In a nutshell the nature is not permanent. It is always moving. It will not be stable.

Apart from that, the poet says that all the seasons have their good and bad. This is implicitly conveyed with wonderful effect in the very last line of the ode. “and gathering swallows twitter in the skies” in one way the line gives a premonition of the coming winter, for the swallows are gathering in preparation to migrate to warmer climes. Yet we remember that migratory birds return when the cold weather ends, so that the very hint of their impending departure carries with it an implied suggestion of their reappearance when warm days come again. 

To sum up! “Ode to autumn” is a short poem written by a Romantic poet John Keats in his last few days of life. He wrote this poem when he walked the English countryside in the autumn of 1819. He was admired by the beauty of nature.  He suggests the impermanent of nature in the poetic lines through fine division of stanzas and stating the stages of autumn in them vividly. This ode is a clear illustration for the impermanent of nature.

MCMXIV

MCMXIV

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats' restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

About the poet

Born in 1922 in Coventry, England. He attended St. John's College, Oxford. 

His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and, though not particularly strong on its own, is notable insofar as certain passages foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work. In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry, learning from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems. With his second volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955), Larkin became the preeminent poet of his generation, and a leading voice of what came to be called 'The Movement', a group of young English writers who rejected the prevailing fashion for neo-Romantic writing in the style of Yeats and Dylan Thomas. Like Hardy, Larkin focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity. 

In 1964, he confirmed his reputation as a major poet with the publication of The Whitsun Weddings, and again in 1974 with High Windows: collections whose searing, often mocking, wit does not conceal the poet's dark vision and underlying obsession with universal themes of mortality, love, and human solitude. Deeply anti-social and a great lover (and published critic) of American jazz, Larkin never married and conducted an uneventful life as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull, where he died in 1985.

Popular Poems:

A Study Of Reading Habits
Ambulances
An Arundel Tomb
Annus Mirabilis
Arrival
At Grass
Aubade

Background, themes,and symbols of "Animal Farm"

Background information for George Orwell's Animal Farm 

Animal Farm is a satirical novella (which can also be understood as a modern fable or allegory) by George Orwell, ostensibly about a group of animals who oust the humans from the farm on which they live. They run the farm themselves, only to have it degenerate into a brutal tyranny of its own. 

The book was written during World War II and published in 1945, although it was not widely successful until the late 1950s.
Animal Farm is a satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism. Orwell based major events in the book on ones from the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. Orwell, a democratic socialist, and a member of the Independent Labour Party for many years, was a critic of Stalin, and was suspicious of Moscow-directed Stalinism after his experiences in the Spanish Civil War.

Themes and Symbols in Animal Farm

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

1. Corruption

2. Exploitation 

3. Foolishness

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

1. Animal Farm

Animal Farm, known at the beginning and the end of the novel as the Manor Farm, symbolizes Russia and the Soviet Union under Communist Party rule. But more generally, Animal Farm stands for any human society, be it capitalist, socialist, fascist, or communist. It possesses the internal structure of a nation, with a government (the pigs), a police force or army (the dogs), a working class (the other animals), and state holidays and rituals. Its location amid a number of hostile neighboring farms supports its symbolism as a political entity with diplomatic concerns.

2. The Barn

The barn at Animal Farm, on whose outside walls the pigs paint the Seven Commandments and, later, their revisions, represents the collective memory of a modern nation. The many scenes in which the ruling-class pigs alter the principles of Animalism and in which the working-class animals puzzle over but accept these changes represent the way an institution in power can revise a community’s concept of history to bolster its control. If the working class believes history to lie on the side of their oppressors, they are less likely to question oppressive practices. Moreover, the oppressors, by revising their nation’s conception of its origins and development, gain control of the nation’s very identity, and the oppressed soon come to depend upon the authorities for their communal sense of self.

3. The Windmill

The great windmill symbolizes the pigs’ manipulation of the other animals for their own gain. Despite the immediacy of the need for food and warmth, the pigs exploit Boxer and the other common animals by making them undertake backbreaking labor to build the windmill, which will ultimately earn the pigs more money and thus increase their power. The pigs’ declaration that Snowball is responsible for the windmill’s first collapse constitutes psychological manipulation, as it prevents the common animals from doubting the pigs’ abilities and unites them against a supposed enemy. The ultimate conversion of the windmill to commercial use is one more sign of the pigs’ betrayal of their fellow animals. From an allegorical point of view, the windmill represents the enormous modernization projects undertaken in Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution.

Animal Farm

George Orwell

Eric Blair was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, in the then British colony of India, where his father, Richard, worked for the Opium Department of the Civil Service. His mother, Ida, brought him to England at the age of one. He did not see his father again until 1907, when Richard visited England for three months before leaving again until 1912. Eric had an older sister named Marjorie and a younger sister named Avril. With his characteristic humour, he would later describe his family's background as "lower-upper-middle class." 

Orwell's works

During most of his career Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books of reportage such as Homage to Catalonia (describing his experiences during the Spanish Civil War), Down and Out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in these cities), and The Road to Wigan Pier (which described the living conditions of poor miners in northern England). According to Newsweek, Orwell "was the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since Hazlitt." 

Contemporary readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful titles Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is considered an allegory of the corruption of the socialist ideals of the Russian Revolution by Stalinism, and the latter is Orwell's prophetic vision of the results of totalitarianism. Orwell denied that Animal Farm was a reference to Stalinism. Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'. 

Orwell is also known for his insights about the political implications of the use of language. In the essay "Politics and the English Language", he decries the effects of cliche, bureaucratic euphemism, and academic jargon on literary styles, and ultimately on thought itself. Orwell's concern over the power of language to shape reality is also reflected in his invention of Newspeak, the official language of the imaginary country of Oceania in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line - with the final aim of making it impossible even to conceive such ideas. (cf. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis). A number of words and phrases that Orwell coined in Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered the standard vocabularly, such as "memory hole," "Big Brother," "Room 101," "doublethink," "thought police," and "newspeak."

Ode to autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.