Classic Poem

Gumboro, on the Pocomoke,
Set in the Cypress swamp to soak!
I only know thee by my bird,
The Mocking Bird, that fails in word,
But has the sounds of bush and brake,
The hissing of the wooing snake,
The eagle's challenge and the wit
Or warble of the wren and tit.
With such variety of quill
In the morass why grew thy trill?
But in the city ne'er repeats
The noises of the human streets?

I think I hear the sawyer's saw,
The night wind and the tempest's awe,
The trickle of the Cypress spring,
The owl's chant, the carolling
Of catbirds, when they check their chat
To hoot the prowling tiger cat—
O, couldst thou speak, Shakespeare might note
Vocabulary in thy throat
And Nature's man, all sided, show
In the small life of Gumboro.

Bird of the thicket! tell me things
Not known to Bishops or to Kings,
Nor fashion's women, gaping at
Thy plumage only in their hat!
Past my conceiving flowing were
Thy runlets sweet with juniper,
Till through the iron sands they took
Magnetic tonic from the brook,
Lent me their mockery to romp
With strength and music from the swamp,
And Nature in my haste invoke—
Remembered strains of Pocomoke.
O, to their music tune my words—
Composer to the Mocking Birds!