The Jackdaw

There is a bird, who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow;
A great frequenter of the church,
Where bishop-like he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.

Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns to indicate
From what point blows the weather;
Look up — your brains begin to swim,
’Tis in the clouds — that pleases him,
He chooses it the rather.

Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,
And thence securely sees
The bustle and the raree-show
That occupy mankind below,
Secure and at his ease.

You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No, not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.

He sees that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its medley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses
Is no concern at all of his
And says — what says he? — “Caw”.

Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And sick of having seen ’em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine,
And such a head between ’em.

William Cowper (1731-1800) was an acute and tender observer of the natural world. He wrote famously and winningly about the rescued hares he acquired as pets, and produced one of the memorable English tree poems in Yardley Oak. This week’s poem brings satirical and personal concerns into its observations.

The jackdaw is granted perfect immunity to the “raree-show” of human affairs, the world’s “great roundabout” of “church, army, physics, law”. Its “philosophic pate” and other anthropomorphic characteristics aren’t sentimental gestures. They provide masks for the writer, suggesting his character, social relations and opinions.

The jackdaw, we’re told in stanza one, is often mistaken for a crow. Cowper may be suggesting his own identity has been misunderstood. But the outsider has advantages beyond an aerial view of human folly and clerical hypocrisy. In the second stanza, the bird perches on the “plate” that dizzily “turns and turns” above the church. The tidy syntax of this sextain is disrupted by dashes, reproducing some of the sensations of looking up high from a lower vantage-point, when “your brains begin to swim”. This might reference a writing trance, the pleasurable kind of disorientation. But it’s worth noting that Cowper suffered recurrent bouts of mental disorder, designated “insanity” at the time. The jackdaw makes a choice in favour of being “in the clouds” and perhaps represents the poet’s management of, and triumph over, the terrors of his condition. The jackdaw has the power of flight and can balance on a fine edge: he fears no fall.

The “caw” uttered at the end of the fifth stanza represents the extent of the jackdaw’s unconcern, and makes a pleasantly mocking rhyme with the word “law” (Cowper’s first field of study). With the thrust of colloquialism (“seen ’em”, “between ’em”) in the concluding rhymes, Cowper turns his scorn back on to the world of men, and firms up his wish to have the wings and the “philosophic pate” of the “thrice happy bird”. The social world, the inner self and a real bird living its own life coexist in The Jackdaw, a poem that seems to me an example of the depth and range that so-called “light” verse may at its best include.