Classic Poem

Clad in sacerdotal black,
Lean and hungry, as you sail
Heavy-winged along the vale —
Sable breast and ebon back,
Crow, you mind me with your croak,
Of Hamlet, in his inky cloak.

Bird ungracious, most fallacious
Is your aspect so sagacious!
Had you half the finer sense
Of the robin and the jay,
Your gaunt crew would hie away
At the first fall of the snow;
But then, being but a crow,
Beggared by your indolence,
You prefer to starve and stay,
Shivering through the winter time
Of our bleak, tempestuous clime,
And subsisting but by crime!
You're a thief!
That's your character in brief,
And 'tis proper that the county
On your black poll puts a bounty.

When the farmer sows his corn,
Him you watch at early morn,
But no sooner off he goes,
Singing homeward with his hoes,
Than your six ungainly toes
Ruin half his careful rows!
Vagabond, 'tis well the State,
Sets a price upon your pate:
If there's any thing I hate,
Worse than poison, I suppose
It is Crows!

Thief and coward! all your clan
Shun the very shape of man.
Swinging from some blasted limb,
Effigy of Dandy Jim —
Straw-stuffed coat and battered hat,
Dangling boots and hemp cravat,
Puts your poltroon troop to flight,
With precipitate affright!

But when, wing-slant to the gale,
I observe you upward sail,
Then with envy, bandit bird,
Is my eager spirit stirred
To be with you as you fare
Through the azure fields of air,
Thus for one brief hour to know
How it seems to be a crow!
So with you I might descry,
From some tall pine lifting high
Its green plume, the fertile fields,
With their harvest loaded wains,
And the lakes whose silver shields
Catch the sunlight and the rains,
And the picturesque romance
Of the landscape's wide expanse!

Up there in the cloudless weather,
Laying our two heads together,
Would we look with high disdain
On the petty cares and pain
Of the weary-plodding swain,
Who in valleys far below
Reaps his heritage of woe —
Sowing sorrow, reaping rue,
Ah! what more can mortal do?

So with you for one brief day,
Would I bear myself away
From the weariness and care
To which mortal man is heir;
Although, in a general way,
As I took the pains to say,
If within my cautious breast
Hatred ever builds her nest —
If there's aught that I detest
In the abstract — I suppose