Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool!
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?
Thine ever ready notes of ridicule
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe.
Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe,
Thou sportive satirist of Nature’s school,
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule!
...
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Silence instead of thy sweet song, my bird,
Which through the darkness of my winter days
Warbling of summer sunshine still was heard;
Mute is thy song, and vacant is thy place.The spring comes back again, the fields rejoice,
Carols of gladness ring from every tree;
But I shall hear thy wild triumphant voice
No more: my summer... -
Thou glorious mocker of the world! I hear
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
Of these green solitudes; and all the clear,
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear,
And floods the heart. Over the spherëd tombs
Of vanished nations rolls thy music-tide:
No light from History’s starlit page illumes
The memory of these... -
Superb and sole, upon a plumëd spray
That o’er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ’d the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds’ passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate’er birds did or dreamed, this bird could... -
He did n’t know much music
When first he come along;
An’ all the birds went wonderin’
Why he did n’t sing a song.They primped their feathers in the sun,
An’ sung their sweetest notes;
An’ music jest come on the run
From all their purty throats!But still that bird was silent
In summer time an’ fall;
... -
The name thou wearest does thee grievous wrong.
No mimic thou! That voice is thine alone!
The poets sing but strains of Shakespeare’s song;
The birds, but notes of thine imperial own! -
List to that bird! His song—what poet pens it?
Brigand of birds, he ’s stolen every note!
Prince though of thieves—hark! how the rascal spends it!
Pours the whole forest from one tiny throat! -
He did n’t know much music
When first he come along;
An’ all the birds went wonderin’
Why he did n’t sing a song.They primped their feathers in the sun,
An’ sung their sweetest notes;
An’ music jest come on the run
From all their purty throats!But still that bird was silent
In summer time an’ fall;
...