There is a beautiful, tranquil and melodic work by the English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams titled The Lark Ascending. And the subject is found also in the book From Lark Rise to Candleford, so titled “because of the great number of skylarks which made the surrounding fields their springboard and nested on the bare earth between the rows of green corn,” as Flora Thompson writes in her memory book of England. Larks — skylarks, that is — were associated in old hokku with spring, so here are some of my translations of a few old “skylark” hokku.
The river boat;
Skylarks rise singing
To right and left.
Rankô
That in itself is a pastoral, visual and aural melody — the boat passing slowly up the peaceful, green-banked spring river as repeatedly skylarks rise from the grass on either side, singing as they ascend.
This verse by Onitsura is remarkably simple, yet effective:
Green barley;
The skylark rises
And descends.
In the fields the barley is young and fresh, and from it rises the skylark, singing as it flies, and expressing the spring in its voice as does the barley in its greenness.
In the work fields
All is still;
The evening skylark.
Kiin
The day’s work has ended, the fields are empty of people, and in that tranquility the skylark sings. It’s voice is the curfew that “tolls the knell of parting day.”
A voice
Above the white clouds –
The skylark!
Kyoroku
In hokku one does not stop to ask if a perception is scientifically correct or not. One does not say the voice “seems” to come from above the clouds. It is just perceived so. The song of the skylark, the billowing white clouds and the blue sky beyond — a trinity of spring.
David
