Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Richard HenryWilde

47 To the Mocking-Bird

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!

For such thou art by day—but all night long

Thou pourest a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain,

As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song

Like to the melancholy Jacques complain,

Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong,

And sighing for thy motley coat again.