TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.

Arch imitator! ’mid thy varied tone,

That revels so acquisitively sweet,

Rivalling e’en Nature’s self, when doth thine own

Wild native air my rapt delusion greet?

Hast thou a voice to echo every note

Of liquid melody that erst hath dwelt

’Mid the greenwood, or where soft zephyrs float:

Yet of thine own hath not, in ecstacy to melt?

What modulation, what inflected grace,

Breathes through the volume of that warbling spell!

An intonation clear, that doth embrace

The woven minstrelsy from rock to dell.

The spring-tide melody, the summer lay,

The plaintiveness of darkly shadow’d night—

Who hath her choral charms, as beaming day—

These in their change are thine, to ’wilder and delight.

That rich, full swell of sweetness and of force,

That seem’d to wrap thy life-stream with the song,

In its wild strength—as struggling springs their source,

Break, and are borne in murm’ring sounds along:

Say, was it thine?—thy Parent-giving strain,

The innate warbling of thy purer soul,

That gush’d, as if it would to bowers attain

Where flowers unwith’ring bloom, and strains divine e’er roll?

But ah! again to earth that half-fled sprite

Sinks, in the beauty of some well-known air,

Less free and joyous, in its raptur’d flight,

Than the wild touching thrill that spoke thee there.

Kindred of thine own vocalizing race,

Yet of surpassing skill and strength of flow—

Illimitably varied—where we trace

The wondrous spell of mystery, we seek to know.

Gay, spry deceiver, from thy covert nigh,

Methinks I hear the myriad of thy clime

Pouring sweet incense through the southern sky,

In the free rapture of each gift divine;

Yet all successive—one continuous swell

Of silvery softness from the fount of love;

The mellow wood-notes, or the screaming yell,

Attest thy perfect art—thy imitations prove.

Oh, spirit-bird! to man thou hast been sent,

To teach Omnipotence by gush of song,

Bringing bright thoughts of goodness, that is blent

In all that gladdens—all that glides along—

And if, perchance, this teaching be not vain,

To win him upward, where he may rejoice

’Mid holy love, pure scenes, and sacred strain

Of heavenly praise, such as I hear from thee, thou voice!

A. F. H.