Part 4 — TO SONG-BIRDS ON A SUNDAY. PUNCH.
Reading edition
Silence, all! ye winged choir; Let not yon right reverend sire Hear your happy symphony: 'Tis too good for such as he.
On the day of rest divine, He poor townsfolk would confine In their crowded streets and lanes, Where they can not hear your strains.
All the week they drudge away, Having but one holiday; No more time for you, than that— Unlike bishops, rich and fat.
Utter not your cheerful sounds, Therefore, in the bishop's grounds; Make him melody no more, Who denies you to the poor. Linnet, hist! and blackbird, hush! Throstle, be a songless thrush; Nightingale and lark, be mute, Never sing to such a brute.
Robin, at the twilight dim, Never let thine evening hymn, Bird of red and ruthful breast, Lend the bishop's Port a zest.
Soothe not, birds, his lonesome hours, Keeping us from fields and flowers, Who to pen us tries, instead, 'Mong the intramural dead.
Only let the raven croak At him from the rotten oak; Let the magpie and the jay Chatter at him on his way. And when he to rest has laid him, Let his ears the screech-owl harry; And the night-jar serenade him With a proper charivari.