Classic Poem

Thou vocal sprite — thou feather'd troubadour!
In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger,
Com'st thou to doff thy russet suit once more
And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger?
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature;
But wise, as all of us, perforce, must think 'em,
The school-boy best hath fixed thy nomenclature,
And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O-Linkum.

Say! art thou, long 'mid forest glooms benighted,
So glad to skim our laughing meadows over —
With our gay orchards here so much delighted,
It makes thee musical, thou airy rover?
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer'd treasure
Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn'd to ravish
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure,
And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish?

They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks
Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges;
And even in a brace of wandering weeks,
They say, alike thy song and plumage changes;
Here both are gay; and when the buds put forth,
And leafy June is shading rock and river,
Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North,
While through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver.

Joyous, yet tender — was that gush of song
Caught from the brooks, where 'mid its wild flowers smiling
The silent prairie listens all day long,
The only captive to such sweet beguiling;
Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls
And column'd isles of western groves symphonious,
Learn from the tuneful woods, rare madrigals,
To make our flowering pastures here harmonious?

Caught'st thou thy carol from Ottawa maid,
Where, through the liquid fields of wild-rice plashing,
Brushing the ears from off the burdened blade,
Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing?
Or did the reeds of some savannah south
Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing,
To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth,
The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing?

Unthrifty prodigal! — is no thought of ill
Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever?
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still
Throb on in music till at rest for ever?
Yet now in wilder'd maze of concord floating,
'Twould seem that glorious hymning to prolong,
Old Time in hearing thee might fall a-doting,
And pause to listen to thy rapturous song!