BLACKBIRDS haunt the pages of poetry. The contrast between their sometimes irascible behaviour and their peerless singing adds piquancy to the birds’ interaction with their human listeners and observers. They feature in several poems by Edwin Morgan. This particular one, with its dreamy, contemplative atmosphere, dates from 1980 and can be found in Morgan’s Collected Poems (Carcanet, £14.95).

THE BLACKBIRD

I dreamed I was a child again,

the bedroom dark and still.

A blackbird began whistling

from old trees by the wall.

The notes came out so clearly

in phrases long and sweet

I thought he must be speaking

to some listening mate.

But he was never answered

as the day grew slowly grey.

I crept up to the window

thinking surely I’d see

one solitary songbird,

but though he sang and sang

with such half-shy persistence

I never glimpsed a wing.

I stole back to the bedclothes,

turned over; it was five.

I woke, and heard a blackbird

clear and loud and live.

He filled me with his freshness,

more sweet because more real.

Yet he had set me dreaming,

If to wake, and feel.