| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | To the Mocking-Bird | | By Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847) |
| | | WINGED mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! | |
| Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? | |
| Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule | |
| Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe: | |
| Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, | 5 |
| Thou sportive satirist of Nature’s school; | |
| To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, | |
| Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule! | |
| For such thou art by day,—but all night long | |
| Thou pour’st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, | 10 |
| As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song | |
| Like to the melancholy Jacques complain, | |
| Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, | |
| And sighing for thy motley coat again. | | | | |
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