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he Story of Our Mocking-Bird

THE pr ORT Y of OUR
MOCKING-BIRD. By
Sidney Lanier. With Six-

teen Illustrations in Color

Charles Scribner’s Sons

New Medan M ACCCXLCIX

Copyright, 1883, hy The Independent
Copyright, 1899, hy Mary Day Lanier

QL 6b7L
jae 4
ied st Ho

i

2, - copy accepted
Order Div,

Prefatory Note

HE poet Stdney Lanier loved to swing in
full-muscled walks through the fields and

woods ; to take the higgest how and quiver

out of the archery implements provided for

himself and his hrood of hoys, and with them trail-
ing at his heels, to tramp and shoot at rovers ; to he-
stride a springy horse and ride through the mountains
and the valleys, noting what they were pleased to
show of tree and hird and heast life. He could feel
the honest savage tnstintt of the hunter (and lose it
in hes first sight of a stag’s death-eyes ). A rare
hird’s nest with eggs produced in him the rapture
vouchsafed to harharian Boy, along with the divine
suggestions vouchsafed to the Poet. This may he
worth while to say to those of Lanter’s readers who
may think of him as a sensitive, delicate man of
letters, and who must see in most of his writing
evidences of extreme sensihility. It was this hahtt of
a prathical, face-to-face conversation with nature
which, joined with the artist’s instinéi, makes the

sketch of “Bob” so veracious a pitiure of a hird-indi-
vidual and a hird-spectes. Lanier’s wife and chil-
dren remember well the delight the hird had for his
hrother artist; how the amused flute would trill with
extravagant graces to the silent hut heedful wonder
of the caged one. Every surprising token of intelli-
gence, of affection, of valor displayed hy Boh was
hailed hy Mr. Lanier with a hoy’s ecstacy over a
pet, and a poet’s thankfulness of a heautiful work
of the Creator. |

There 7s, doubtless, no need to assure the reader
that the events of Boh’s life as hereinafter depitied
are historically true; he was acquired hy one of the
poet’s hoys, who, forhidden to roh nests, remembers
his fear, on the way home with Boh in his straw hat,
that the account of the hird’s helpless condition would
not serve as a fair and reasonable excuse for keep-
ing him as a pet.

The illustrations which form so important a part
of the effort to make a pitture of Boh, are unusual
in their origin and tn their method. Mr. Dugmore
made photographic studies of a young mocking-hird,

or, rather, of a number of young mocking-hirds, the
photographs were colored hy him, and the plates
from these photographs were printed tn color. The
variety of rare tints in any hird’s plumage, their
extreme delicacy, and the infinitely fine gradations
of shading have almost always haffled the artist
and the printer. The present attempt to reproduce
Mr. Dugmore’s masterly pittures tn color shows at
least a handsome advance in the difficult art.

Charles Day Lanter.

Ofioher, 1899.

SE of Illustrations

From Photographs made from Life
and colored hy A. R. Dugmore

- * Boh lying in a lump” To face page 4

'“To tncrease the volume of his rudimentary
feathers”

- “Throw his head hack and open his yellow-
lined heak”

“He scrambled to the hars of the cage which
his feeble companion was unable to do”

“For it was his own image in the looking-
glass of a bureau”

“H7s hath”
“When he smoothed his feathers”

- “And as many times slid down the smooth
surface of the mirror and wounded himself
upon the perilous pin-cushton”

' “The most elegant, trim .. . little dandy”

j «4 sidelong, enquiring posture of the head,
.. . Is she gone?”

' “ He eats very often”

“Boh never negletis to wipe his heak after
each meal”

“He stretches hts hody until he seems incredi-
bly tall”

“When he ts cold he makes himself into a
round hall of feathers”

\ “When hes feathers fall. He ts then uns peak-
ably dejetied. . . . every feather dropped
from his tail” ;

\ “We have only to set Boh’s cage where a spot
of sunshine will fall on tt. . . . up goes his
heak, and he ts off”

ACCA

oes)

cs

q
The Mocking-Bird

Superh and sole, upon a pluméd spray

That o'er the general leafage holdly grew,

He summ’d the woods tn song ; or typic drew

The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay

Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all hirds’ passton-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or hosky avenue.

Whateer hirds did or dreamed, this hird could say.
Then down he shot, hounced atrily along

The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song
Midfiight, perched, prinked, and to hes art again.
Sweet Sctence, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull tnseét he

The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?

=e OT that his

In respect of his behavior
during a certain trying pe-
riod which I am presently

to recount, he ought to be |
called Sir Philip Sidney:
yet, by virtue of his con-

duct in another very trou-

Bo p | blesome business which I

will relate, he has equal

claim to be known as Don
Quixote de la Mancha:
while, in consideration that
he is the Voice of his whole
race, singing the passions

of all his Jellows better

than any one could sing
his own, he is clearly en-
titled to be named Wil-
liam Shakspere.

For Bob ts our mocking-

the top of a certain great
june in a certain small city
on the sea-coast of Georgia.
In this tree and a host of
his lordly fellows which
tower over that little city,
the mocking-birds abound
in unusual numbers. They
love the prodigious masses
of the leaves, and the gen-
erous breezes from the

neighboring Gulf Stream,

bird. He fell to us out of Bop

8 B | and, most of all, the infi-
| nite flood of the sunlight
which is so rich and cor-
dial that it will make even
aman lifthis head towards
the sky, as a mocking-bird
lifis his beak, and try to
sing something or other.
About three years ago, in
a sandy road which skirts

a grove of such tall pines,
a wayfarer found Bob ly-
ing ina lump. It could not

have been more than a few
days since he was no bird
at all, only an egg with
possibilities. Lhe finder
brought him to our fence
and turned him over to a
young man who had done

us the honor to come out of

a Strange Country and live
at our house about six years
before. Gladly received by
this last, Bob was brought
within, and family discus-

Bo Rp | sions were held. He could
not be put back into a tree:
the hawks would have had
him in an hour. The origi-
nal nest was not tobe found.
We struggled hardagainst
committing the crime—as
we had always considered
it—of caging a bird. But
finally tt became plain that

there was no other resource.

In fact, we were obliged to

recognize that he had come

tous from the hand of Pro-
vidence, and, though we
are among the most steady-
going democrats of this
Republic, we were yet suf-
ficiently acquainted with

the etiquette of courts to

know that one does not re-
Suse the gift of the King.

Dimly hoping, therefore,
that we might see our way
clear to devise some means

of giving Bob an education

F 0 p | thatwould fit him for a for-
ester, we arranged suitable
accommodations for him,
and he was tended with
motherly care.

He repaid our attentions

Jrom the very beginning.
He immediately began to
puck up in flesh and to in-

crease the volume of his ru-
dimentary feathers. Soon
he commenced to call jor

his food as lustily as any

ay a 5 Le
ro a Lr az

- se “i
a in

atime od

spotled child. When it was
brought, he would throw
his head back and open
his yellow-lined beak to a
width which no one would
credit who did not see it.

Into this enormous cavity,

whichseemedalmostlarger
than the bird, his protec-
tress would thrust —and
the more vigorously the bet-
ter he seemed to like 1it—

ball after ball of the yolk

of hard-boiled egg mashed
up with trish potato.

How, from this dry com-
found which was his only
Jare except an occasional
worm off the rose-bushes,

Bob could have wrought

the surprising nobleness of

spirit which he displayed
about six weeks after he
came tous ...1s a matter
which I do not believe the
most expansive application

Y
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of Mr. Herbert Shencer’s Bo B
theory of the genesis of
emotion could even remote-
ly account for. I refer to
the occasion when he fairly
earned the title of Sir Philip
Sidney. A short time after

he became our guest a cou-

ple of other fledgelings
were brought and placed

in his cage. One of these
soon died, but the other con-
tinued for some time longer

Bo B to drag out a drooping Cx

istence. One day, when Bob
was about six weeks old,
his usual ration had been

delayed, owing to the pres-
sure of other duties upon his
attendant. He was not slow

to make this circumstance
known by all the language

available to him. He was

very hungry indeed and

was squealing with every
appearance of entreaty and

EEE

ee ee .

of indignation when at last Bo R
the lady of the house was

able to bring him his break-
fast. He scrambled to the
bars of the cage—which
his feeble companion was
unable to do—took the prof-
Jered ball of egg-and-fo-

tato fiercely in his beak, and

then, instead of swallowing
it, deliberately flapped back
to his sick guest in the cor-
ner and gave him the whole

of it without tasting a mor-
sel.

Now when Sir Philip Sid-
ney was being carried off
the battle-field of Zutphen
with a fearful wound in
his thigh, he became very
thirsty and begged for wa-
ter. As the cup was handed
him, a dying soldier who

lay near cast upon it a look

of great longing. This Sid-

ney observed : refusing the

i
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“SR Ati BR SMH UIE RA nit mest rr og

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ix

4 ae nna ensue ania

RIT MORIN cen: toa damnebeRinisinliiesahenriicsons

cuns he ordered thai i
should be handed to the

soldier, saying, ‘His ne-

cessity 1s greater than

mine.”

Mocking - bird

is called Bob

' gust as a goat

is called Billy or Nan, as
a parrot ts called Poll, as
a squirrel is called Bunny,

or as a cat 1s called Pussy

or Tom. In spite of the

suggestions forced upon us
by the similarity of his be-
havior to that of the sweet
young gentleman of Zut-

phen, our bird continued

to bear the common apjpel-
lation of his race and no
efforts on the part of those

who believe in the fitness

of things have availed to
change the habits of Bob’s
friends in this particular.
Bob he was, is, and will

probably remain.

Perhaps under a weight-
ier title he would not have
thriven so rosperously.
Ais growth was amazing

ce B \in body and in mind. By
the time he was two months
old he clearly showed that
he was going to be a singer.
About this period certain
little feeble trills and ex-

perimental whistles began

to vary the monotony of his

absurd squeals and chir-
rups. The musical busi-
ness, and the marvellous
work of feathering him-
self, occupied his thoughts

continually. I cannot but
suppose that he superin-
tended the disposition of
the black, white and gray
markings on his wings and
his tail as they succes-
sively appeared: he cer-
tainly manufactured the
pigments with which those
colors were laid on, some-
where within himself, —
and all out of egg-and-
jotato. How he ever got

Be p |\the idea of arranging his

feather characteristics ex-
actly as those of all other
male mocking-birds are
arranged—is more than I

know. It is equally beyond

me to conceive why he did
not— while he was about
it— exert his individuality
to the extent of some litile
peculiar black dot or white
stripe whereby he could at
least tell himself, from any

other bird. His failure to Bo B

attend to this last matter

was aflerwards the cause
ofa great battle from which
Bob would have emerged

in a plight as ludicrous as
any of Don Qutxote’s,—
considering the harmless

and unsubstantial nature

of his antagonist—had not

this view of his behavior

been changed by the cour-

age and spirit with which

he engaged his enemy, the

gallantry with which he
continued the fight, and the
good faithful blood which
he shed while it lasted. In

all these particulars his

batile fairly rivalled any
encounter of the much-
bruised Knight of la Man-.
cha.

He was about a year old
when it happened, and
the fight took place a long

way from his native heath. Bo B

He was spending the sum-
mer at a pleasant country
home in Pennsylvania. He
had appeared to take gust
as much delight in the
clover fields and manston-
studded hills of this lovely
region as in the lonesome
Sorests and sandy levels of
his native land. He had

sung, and sung: even in his

dreams at night his Sensi-

Bo B | tive little soul would often
get quite too full and he
would pour forth raptur-
ous bursts of sentiment at
any time between twelve
o’clock and daybreak. If
our health had been as
little troubled by broken

slumber as was his, these

melodies in the late night

would have been glorious ;
but there were some of us
whohad gone into the coun-

try especially to sleep; and ¥ OB

we were finally driven to

swing the sturdy songster
highupinour outside porch
at night, by an apparatus
contrived with careful re-
ference to cats. Several
of these animals in the
neighborhood had longed
unspeakably for Bob ever
since his arrival. We had
seen them eyeing him from

behind bushes and through

B OR | windows, and had once

rescued him from one who

had thrust a paw between
the very bars of his cage.
That cat was going to eat
him, art and all, with no
compunciion in the world.
His music seemed to make
no more impression on cats
than Keats’s made on crit-
ics. If only some really
discriminating person had
been by with a shot-gun

when The Quarterly thrust
its paw into poor Endym-
ion’s cage!

One day at this country-
house Bob had been let out
of his cage and allowed
to fly about the room. He
had cut many antics, to
the amusement of the com-
pany, when presently we
left him, to go down to din-
ner. What occurred afier-

ward was very plainly told

by circumstantial evidence
when we returned. As soon

as he was alone, he had
availed himself of his un-
usual freedom to go explor-

ing about the room. In the
course of his investigation
he suddenly found himself
confronted by ... it is
impossible to say what he
considered it. If he had
been reared in the woods

he would probably have re-

garded tt as another mock-
_ing-bird, —for it was his
own image in the looking-
glass of a bureau. But he
had never seen any member
of his race except the for-
_lorn litile unfledged speci-
men which he had fed at six
weeks of age, and which

bore no resemblance to this

tall, gallant, bright-eyed
figure in the mirror. He
had thus had no opportu-

F OB |ntty to generalize his kind;

and he knew nothing what-
ever of his own personal
appearance except the par-
tial hints he may have
gained when he smoothed
his feathers with his beak
after his bath in the morn-
ing. It may therefore very
well be that he took this
sudden apparition for some
Chimera or dire monster
which had taken advan-

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tage of the family’s tempo-

rary absence to enter the

room, with evil purpose.
Bob immediately deter-
‘mined to defend the prem-
uses. He flew at the invader,
literally beak and claw.
But beak and claw taking
no hold upon the smooth
glass, with each attack he
slid struggling down to the
foot of the mirror. Now i
so happened that a pin-

cushion lay at this point,

which bristled not only
with pins but with needles
which had been tempora-
rily left in it and which
were nearly as sharp atthe
eye-ends as at the points.
Upon these Bob’s poor
claws came down with
Jury: he felt the wounds
and saw the blood: both he
attributed to the strokes of
his enemy, and this roused

AR Dugmore:

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him to new rage. In order |

to give additional momen-

tum to his onset he would

retire towards the other
side of the room and thence
fly at the foe. Again and

again he charged: and as

many times slid down the
smooth surface of the mir-
ror and wounded himself

ufion the perilous pin-cush-

ion. As I entered, being
Jjirst up from table, he was

in the act of fluttering
down against the glass.
The counterpane on the
bed, the white dimity cover
of the bureau, the pin-cush-
ion, all bore the bloody re-
semblances of his feet in
various places,and showed
how many times he had
sought distant points in or-
der to give himself a run-
ning start. His heart was

beating violently, and his

feathers were ludicrously Bo B
tousled. And all against
the mere shadow of him-
self! Never was there such
a temptation for the head
of a family to assemble his
people and draw a prodi-
gious moral. But better
thoughts came: for, after
all, was it not probable
that the poor bird was de-
Jending —or at any rate

believed he was defending

—the rights and proper-
ites of his absent masters
against a foe of unknown
power? All the circum-
stances go to show that he
made the attack with a
faithful valor as reverent
as that which steadied
the lance of Don Quixote
against the windmills. In
after days, when his cage
has been placed among the
boughs of the trees, he has

not shown any warlike
Jeelings against the robins
and sparrows that passed
about, but only a, friendly
interest.

Ait this present writing,

Bob is the most elegant,

trim, electric, persuasive,
cunning, tender, coura-
geous, artistic little dandy
of a bird that mind canim-
agine. He does not confine
himself to imitating the

Bo B | songs of his tribe. He ts a
creative artist. I was wit-
ness not long ago to the se-
lection and adoption by him
of a rudimentary whistle-
language. During an ull-
ness it fell to my lot to sleep
in a room alone with Bob.
Inthe early morning, when
a lady—to whom Bob is
passionately atiached —
would make her appear-
ance in the room, he would

Nee EEE

salute her with a certain F OB
joyful chirrup which ap-
pears to belong to him pe-
culiarly. I have not heard
it from any other bird. But
sometimes the lady would
merely open the door, make
an inquiry, and then re-
tire. It was now necessary
Jor his artistic soul to find
some form of expressing

grief. For this purpose he

selected a certain cry al-

Bo p | most identical with that
of the cow-bird—an tinde-
scribably plaintive, long-
drawn, thin whistle. Day
after day I heard him

make use of these expres-

sions. He had never done

so before. The mournful

one he would usually ac-
company, as soon as the
door was shut, with a side-
long inquiring posture of
the head, which was a

clear repetition of the lov-
er’s Is she gone? Is she

really gone?

amaoe TERE ts one

d particular in which

| DY - Bob’s habits cannot
be recommended. He eats
very often. In fact f Bob

should hire a cook, it would

be absolutely necessary for

him to write down his
hours for her guidance;
and this writing would look
very much ltke a time-table
of the Pennsylvania, or
the Hudson River, or the

FET OR
TOORAK i

Old Colony, Railroad. He
would have to say: ** Brid-
get will be kind enough
to get me my breakfast at
the following hours: 5,
5-30) 5-40, O, O15;
0.30, O45) 7 7-20;
7.40, 8 (and so on, every
Jifieen or twenty minutes,
until 72 M.); my dinner
m2, F2.20; 12.70, 1,
0275, 7:70 (and so on
every fifteen or twenty

| Bo Rp | minutes until O [.m.); my
supper is irregular, but I

wish Bridget particularly
to remember that I always
eat whenever I awake in
the night, and that I usu-
ally awake four or five
times between bedtime and
daybreak.” With all this
eating, Bob never neglects
to wipe his beak afier
each meal. This he does by

drawing it quickly, three

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or four times on each side,
against his perch.
I never tire of watching

his motions. There does not
seem to be the least friction
between any of the com-
ponent parts of his sys-
tem. They all work, give,

play in and out, stretch,
contract, and serve his
desires generally with a
smoothness and soft pre-
cision truly admirable.

Bo B| Merely to see him leap
Jrom his perch to the floor
of his cage 1s to me a never-
jailing marvel. It is so
instantaneous, and yet so
quiet: clin, and heis down,
with his head in the. food-
cup: I can compare i
to nothing but the stroke
of Fate. It is perhaps a

strained association of the

large with the small: but

when he suddenly leaps

down in this instantaneous Bo B

way, I always feel as if,
while looking down ujfon
the three large Forms of
the antique Sculpture, ly-
ing in severe postures along
the ground, I suddenly
heard the clip of the fatal
shears. —

His repertory of songs is
extensive. Perhapsit would
have been much more so

if his life had been in the

B O PB | woods where he would have
had the opportunity to hear
the endlessly-various calls
of his race. So far as we
can see, the stock of songs
which he now sings must
have been brought in his
own mind from the egg, or

JSrom some Surther source
whereof we know nothing.

He certainly never learned
these calls: many of the
birds of whom he gives per-

Sectimitationshave been al-

ways beyond his reach. He
does not apprehend readily
anew Set of tones. He has
caught twoorthreemusical
phrases from having them
whistled near him. No sys-
tematic attempt, however,
has been made to teach
him anything. His proce-
dure in learning these few
tones was peculiar. He |
would not, on first hearing

Bo Rp | them, make any sign that

he desired to retain them,
beyond a certain air of at-
tention in his posture. Up-
on repetition on a differ-
ent day, his behavior was
the same: there was no
attempt at imitation. But
sometime aflerward, quite
unexpectedly, in the hila-
rious flow of his birdsongs
would appear a perfect re-
froduction of the whistled

tones. Like a great artist Bo RB |
he was rather above futile
and amateurish efforts. He
took things into his mind,
turned them over, and,

when he was perfectly sure
of them, brought them forth

with perfection and with

unconcern.
He has his little joke. His
favorite response to the en-
dearing terms of the lady

whom he loves is to scold

F OB | her. Of course he under-

stands that she under-

stands his wit. He uses

Jor this purpose the angry

warning cry which mock-

ing-birds are in the habit

of employing to drive away

intruders from their nests.

At the same time he ex-

presses his delight by a

peculiar gesture which he

always uses when pleased.

He extends his right wing

meat

Ve Thee

and stretches his leg along Bo B

the inner surface of it as
Jar as he is able.
He has great capacities in
the way of elongating and
contraching himself. When
he is curious, or alarmed,
he stretches his body until
he seems incredibly tall and
of the sixe of his neck all the
way. When he is cold, he
makes himself into a round

ball of. feathers.

THINK I envy

% him most when he
a goes to sleep. He
takes up one leg somewhere
into his bosom, crooks the
other a trifle, shortens his

neck, closes his eyes, —and
it 1s done. He does not ap-

pear to hover a moment
in the borderland between
sleening and waking but
hops over the line with the
same superb decision with

which he drops from his | Bo B :
perch to the floor. I do not |
think he ever has anything
on his mind after he closes
his eyes. It ts my belief that
he never committed a sin of
any sort in his whole life.
There ts but one time when
he ever looks sad. This is
| during the season when
his feathers fall. He ts
then unspeakably dejected. |

Never a note do we get

rom him until it ts over.
Nor can he be blamed. Last
summer not only the usual
loss took place, but every

eather dropped from his
tail. His dejection during
this period was so extreme
that we could not but be-
lieve he had some idea of

his personal appearance

under the disadvantage of

no tail. This was so ludi-
crous that his most ardent

MPO aie ay nore

lovers could scarcely be-
hold him without a smile ;
and it appeared to cut him
to the soul that he should
excite such sentiments.

But ina surprisingly short
time his tail-feathers grew
out again, the rest of his
apparel reappeared fresh
_|and new, and he lifted up
his head: insomuch that
whenever we wish to fill

the house with a gay, con-

jident, dashing, riotous,
innocent, sparkling glory

of jubilation, we have only

to set Bob’s cage where a
shot of sunshine will fall
on it. His beads of eyes
glisten, his form grows in-
tense, up goes his beak, and
he is off.

Finally we have sometimes
discussed the question: ts
it better on the whole, that
Bob should have lived in

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a cage than tn the wild- |
wood? There are confict-
ing opinions about it: but
one of us ts clear that it ts.
He argues that although
there aremany songs which
are never heard, as there

are many eggs which never

hatch, yet the general end
| of a song ts to be heard,
as that of an egg ts to be
hatched. He further argues |

that Bob’s life in his cage |

Bo p | has been one long blessing

to several people who stood
in need of him: whereas
in the woods, leaving aside
the probability of hawks
and bad boys, he would
not have been ltkely to gain
one appreciative listener for
a single half-hour out of
each year. And, as I have
already mercifully released
you from several morals
(continues this disputant)

which Imight have drawn

rom Bob, I am resolved |
thatno power onearth shall
prevent me from drawing
this final one.—We have
heard much of ‘the privi-
leges of genius,” of ‘the
right of the artist to live

out his own existence Sree

| from the conventionalities
of society,” of ‘the un-
morality of art,” and the
like. But I do protest that

Bo PB | the greater the artist, and
the more profound his pity
toward the fellow-man
Jor whom he passionately
works, the readier will be

his willingness to forego

the privileges of genius
and to cage himself in the
conventionalities, even as
the mocking-bird ts caged.
Ms struggle against these
will, I admit, be the greal-
est: he will feel the bitterest

sense of their uselessness
in restraining him from
wrong-doing. But, never-
theless, one consideration
will drive him to enter the
door and get contentedly on
his perch: his fellow-men,
his fellow-men. These he
can reach through the re-
| snectable bars of use and
wont; in his wild thickets

of lawlessness they would

never hear him, or, hear-

ing, would never listen. In
truth this is the sublimest
of self-denials, and none
but a very great artist can
compass it: to abandon
the sweet green forest of
liberty, and live a whole

life behind needless con-

straints, for the more per-
feet service of his fellow-

men.

q :
To Our Mocking-Bird

Died of a Cat, May, 1878
Raat |

Trillets of humor,—shrewdest whistle-wit,—
Contralto cadences of grave desire
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre
Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split
About the slim young widow who doth sit
And sing ahove,—midnights of tone entire, —
Téssues of moonlight shot with songs of fire ;—
Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave
And trickling down the heak,—discourses hrave
Of serious matter that no man may guess,—
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress—
All these hut now within the house we heard:
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the hird ?

II

Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast
A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late
Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap’st my gate,
And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed
Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast,
My hird—wit, songs, and all— thy richest freight
Since that fell time when in some wink of fate
Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast
Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away,
And harried him with hope and horrid play—
Ay, him, the world’s hest wood-hird, wise weth
song —
Tell thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal
wrong.
Twas wrong! *twas wrong! I care not,
wrong ’s the word—
To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-

hird.

Iil

Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord’s hest right.
The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,
That Keats should set all Heaven’s woods tn

rhyme,

And thou in hird-notes. Lo, this tearful night,

Methinks I see thee, fresh from death’s despite,
Perched tn a palm-grove, wild with pantomime,

_ Oer blissful companies couched in shady thyme,

— Methinks I hear thy stluer whistlings hright

Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise,

Till hroad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,
"Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes,
And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,

And halfway pause on some large, courteous word,

And call thee “ Brother,” O thou heavenly Bird!

Baltimore, 1878.

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D. B. Updike
The Merrymount Press
104 Chestnut Street
Boston