 | Poems Old and New by Charles D. Bell |  |
179
SONNET.
TO MY MOCKING-BIRD.
Dear bird, in plumage sober, soft, and grey!Poets have sung in honour of the lark,
Have hymned the nightingale, which, when the dark
Falls on the woods, pours forth her thrilling lay
Of sweet delicious pain; or hurried, gay;
Exhausting praises on her passionate song
Which floats in liquid sounds the night along.
To me thou art more wonderful than they.
Music has made her home within thy throat.
Now swell thy strains as from a full-voiced quire,
Now sinking low, in rapture they expire.
But ere the ear has lost the long-drawn note
Another harmony thou hast begun,
My lark, my thrush, my nightingale in one!
| Poems Old and New by Charles D. Bell | |