The other day, I watched the film, “Finding Forrester.” The reclusive novelist featured in the film and played by Sean Connery happens to be a bird-watcher. At one point, he quotes the poet Robert Lowell, saying:
“Thy duty, winged flame of Spring,
is but to love and fly and sing.”
The lovely couplet occurs in two versions of the poem by Lowell and refers to the scarlet tanager, a brilliant red bird with a lovely voice. To hear the scarlet tanager’s song, visit the scarlet tanager page of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
THE POETRY PLACE 