You will have heard John McCormack sing it superbly. You may have warbled it yourself, for the beautiful words of Samuel Ferguson and the old Irish air with which it goes, marry perfectly: Dear thoughts are in my mind, and my soul soars enchanted/As I hear the sweet lark sing, in the clear air of the day/For a tender beaming smile to my hope has been granted/And tomorrow she shall hear all my fond heart would say.
That was written about a century and a half ago. Today, the skylark may be extinct in Britain by the year 2009, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. This death notice, along with that of other creatures, the WWF attributes to climate change, development (housing taking over land) and the Common Agricultural Policy. Can it be so different for us here?
Also, it is said, that, at current rates, the song-thrush will be extinct on farmland by 2005 and the grey partridge by 2011. The water vole and the pipistrelle bat, on the reckoning of the WWF may be gone by 2003 and 2007 respectively.
A spokesman for the organisation says that all this is a sad reflection on the British 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act "to protect our natural heritage". British conditions do not exactly match our own. They were into modern farming before us. Climatic and building development may differ in degree. But already in the other island the WWF has logged species which have recently become extinct: large tortoise-shell butterfly (1980's); mouse-eared bat (1990) and others. An article in the Daily Telegraph quotes conservationists as saying that the extinction rate of three species every two years may rise for the reasons given above.
Everyone knows of Rachel Carson's dramatic warning in her book Silent Spring. In an introduction Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands made this point: "We are dreaming of conquering space. We are already preparing the conquest of the moon. But if we are going to treat other planets as we are treating our own, we had better leave the Moon, Mars and Venus strictly alone." And that was some years ago.
Perhaps some of this is pessimism or rather the urgent call to action. Back to Samuel Ferguson, and The Lark in the Clear Air. I shall tell her all my love, all my heart's adoration. And I think she will hear me, and will not say me nay/It is this that gives my soul all its joyous elation./As I hear the sweet lark sing, in the clear air of the day.