The Blackbird

The blackbird is the key figure in the poem. It is both an elusive and omnipresent referent, one which instills in the narrator a series of observations and reflections. Despite the weaving rumination that the bird’s presence sets in motion, by the end of the poem the bird is at it was, stoic and solitary amid the natural stillness described in the opening and closing cantos. In this way, the blackbird is a kind of fixture or register of presence, at once indifferent and somehow attentive to human existence.

The Man in the Glass Coach

The eleventh canto refers cryptically to an unnamed man “In a glass coach” who, “pierced” by fear, “mistook / The shadow of his equipage / For blackbirds” (11). The man is only referred to as “He” and is otherwise unidentifiable. The referent to a coach harkens back to pre-modern days, but this may be...