Alec Derwent Hope (1907 – 2000) is an Australian poet known for his elegies and satires. The death of the bird is a lyric poem that leads the readers to the world of a bird.
Hope presents the universal theme of death in the first line. He writes that every bird has to make this inevitable last migration. It also leads to the migration every bird has to make in its life.
During winter, birds move to safer places in Western countries where they feel the warmth. They know about their destination most of the time because they fly back to their last year’s home. When seasons change, she feels like the universe is calling back her to visit her temporary residence. Even though the readers may feel it is like going away but in a way, it’s coming home. This migration has become a part of that bird’s life.
The writer describes the life of a bird in all detail. Readers feel the reflections of birds about their past, its pain when it broods and straws its nest.
Poet narrates the tensions of the bird about her love and the day she feels her lover deserted her. Poet describes the situation of a bird, in which she feels that the sands are green. Poet implies the illusions that lead a bird. The bird attempts to experience the wider world through its smaller eyes. The innate feelings compel her to fly in search of love.
Poet leads readers to the emotional world of the bird. Poet uses the term waste leagues of air to denote the impermanence of relationships the bird falls. Poet welcomes the reader to the theme of alienation in the next stanza by using the words single, frail, alone, lost, and unfriendliness. Sylvia Plath’s Mirror explores the same theme.
The bird experiences loneliness at its peak when she has no partner to share her nest with. When the season changes she flies back by crossing hills and rivers. Poet mentions that the bird feels that hills and rivers mock her little wisdom. Hills and Rivers remain the same, irrespective of the season.
By the end of the poem, the bird slides into her last days. A bird has to fly back and forth many times in its life period. It has to fight against the darkness and hunger during its flight. Hope thinks after the death, the earth will embrace the little bird with warmth. It will be a migration from all its worries.
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