<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=518880" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To Our Mocking-Bird</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Died of a cat, May, 1878.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Trillets of humor, -- shrewdest whistle-wit, --<br> Contralto cadences of grave desire<br> Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre<br>Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split<br>About the slim young widow who doth sit<br> And sing above, -- midnights of tone entire, --<br> Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; --<br>Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite<br>Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave<br>And trickling down the beak, -- discourses brave<br> Of serious matter that no man may guess, --<br> Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress --<br> All these but now within the house we heard:<br> O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast<br> A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late<br> Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate,<br>And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed<br>Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast,<br> My bird -- wit, songs, and all -- thy richest freight<br> Since that fell time when in some wink of fate<br>Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast<br>Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away,<br>And harried him with hope and horrid play --<br> Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song --<br> Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong.<br> 'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, WRONG's the word --<br> To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> III.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right.<br> The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,<br> That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme,<br>And thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night,<br>Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite,<br> Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime,<br> O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme,<br>-- Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright<br>Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise,<br> Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,<br>'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes,<br> And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,<br> And halfway pause on some large, courteous word,<br> And call thee &quot;Brother&quot;, O thou heavenly Bird!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sidney+Lanier">Sidney Lanier</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=518880" data-title="To Our Mocking-Bird de Sidney Lanier" data-description="Died of a cat, May, 1878. I. 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 do..."></div> </div> </div>

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