Bellbirds

Some weeks ago Farm Stud and I had to drive to Sydney for his doctor's appointment.  The drive on the freeway from where we are to Sydney takes between 2.5 to 3 hours depending on traffic.  Sharing the road with us are trailers, huge things that are used to transport big items; tractors, houses (no, I'm not joking) which are "folded" to be assembled again at their destinations, chickens, cattle, etc.

Anyway, as some of these huge vehicles were passing us by, I thought I had heard loud squeaks (we had the windows down) thinking and worrying that one of the wheels of these trailers were about to fall off when Farm Stud said "Bellbirds".

Tractor-chick:  What?
Farm Stud:  Bellbirds
Tractor-chick:  What's that?
Farm Stud:  The sound in the trees passing us by.
Tractor-chick:  But it sounds like squeaks.
Farm Stud:  No, they're bellbirds.

Farm Stud decides to break into poetry just then!  Here I was still trying to understand what he was talking about until I realized the "squeaks" are actually the singing of birds known as Bellbirds.  I learnt that Henry Kendall, who lived in the 1800s wrote a poem about Bellbirds in 1869. 

A little bit about these Bellbirds:

Bellbirds by Henry Kendall is one of Australia's best loved poems, and almost every Australian has at one time or another heard or repeated its melodic phrases, so evocative of the cool, dim blue and green of the Australian mountain country. This poem was first published in a work entitled "Leaves from Australian Forests" by Henry Kendall in the year of 1869.
The bellbird itself is a very small greyish bird. Its call or melody is simply one singular chiming note which seems to ring through their environmental habitat - the mountains and their foothills of Eastern Australia. They may be heard clearly in the quietness of the mountains and hills, although are rarely seen, unless an attitude of patience is adopted.
It is clear that to Henry Kendall, the mountains were a place of refuge and beauty. The Australian mountains are concentrated in a reasonable narrow band known as the "Great Dividing Range" which runs from the tip of Cape York in the north, down the eastern coast - over 3000 kms - through the Snowy and all the way to the Dandenongs in Victoria, and no doubt the same range extends under the Bass Straight and down into the wilderness areas of Tasmania.
The nature of the mountain lands is captured here in the poetry of Henry Kendall and it is equally clear that this nature is not restricted to Australia, but extends to all the planetary mountain lands and the refuges they afford to those who would journey therein in search of peace, harmony and the chance to experience the natural world.

To hear what they sound like - it's mesmerising to the point that I keep my ears open whenever we are driving past locations with dense forest - visit the youtube address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_72WGRT0mJw


The poem:

BELLBIRDS - By Henry Kendall

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,

And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling:

 It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges

Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges.

Through breaks of the cedar and sycamore bowers

Struggles the light that is love to the flowers;

And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,

The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.

The silver-voiced bell birds, the darlings of daytime!

They sing in September their songs of the May-time;

When shadows wax strong, and the thunder bolts hurtle,

They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;

When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together,

They start up like fairies that follow fair weather;

And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden

Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.

October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,

Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;

Loiters, knee-deep, in the grasses, to listen,

Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten.

Then is the time when the water-moons splendid

Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended

Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning

Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the Morning.

Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers

Are the voices of bell-birds to the thirsty far-comers.

When fiery December sets foot in the forest,

And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,

Pent in the ridges for ever and ever

The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,

With ring and with ripple, like runnels who torrents

Are toned by the pebbles and the leaves in the currents.

Often I sit, looking back to a childhood,

Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,

Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion,

Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of Passion;

Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters

Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest-rafters;

So I might keep in the city and alleys

The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys:

Charming to slumber the pain of my losses

With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.

THE END - One of Australia's treasures to behold!