The Malham Bird - A poem by Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse as a poet is a contradiction of Larkin as he presents his strong and ongoing relationship with his wife in the poem 'The Malham Bird' - Through the exposure of his experiences with his wife throughout their relationship he undercovers key positive themes such as 'The power of Love' and happy memories. Although on the other hand in this poem their is an obvious sad tone because of the way his marriage with his wife fell apart.

I think Abse presents himself to us as somebody who is likely to be extremely faithful to his wife and sees marriage as an extremely positive addition to his life. Abse suggests in the first stanza that his significant other is not a Jew - "in love - you a Gentile" whereas on the other hand he makes us aware that he is infact a Jew "and I a Jew!". The Jewish legend exists on a myth that The Malham Bird of Eden obeyed the commandment that it would not eat the forbidden fruit (taste the joys of this world such as marriage) and therefore would live in paradise. Which is a form of Larkin's thinking - in terms of paradise being by yourself and having a lot of freedom. Despite this Legend Abse is very different from Larkin and has a great deal of love towards his wife and chose to marry her because this life is so strong.

You begin to feel that Abse feels sentimental about his Marriage with his wife towards the end of the poem. We get the idea that Abse's marriage fell apart "two chalk lines kiss and slowly disappear" - but he still thinks about her all the time and deep inside his heart the love for his wife will be eternal and with that thought he can re-build his life on his journey to reaching paradise and spreading his wings just like The Malham Bird - not running away from his life even though he lost something that made him a very happy man. - "but stayed, lonely, immortal, forever winging" 

In my opinion this poem is very established around Abse's personal style of writing. Where as in a lot of Larkin's poems he finishes with a philosophical idea i feel that this poem finishes with more of a moral message and suggests that although in life we will lose things that are important to us - you should never give up and always treasure and reflect the memories instead of looking back in anger. The main message in this poem that Abse tries to get across is that he made a mistake taking on marriage as in the end he ended up lonely - and the bird in this poem symbolizes the choices. But in the end although he became lonely he "was not banished" because he remained faithful.

Peregrine Falcons at a place called 'Malham'

http://youtu.be/vp-bPAKLfx4 - I just really like this song and it makes me think of somebody continuously thinking about another person so much that they become 'the voice inside their head' although after everything - they still can't make them love them back.