The Mocking-Bird

He didn’t know much music
When first he come along;
An’ all the birds went wonderin’
Why he didn’t sing a song.

They primped their feathers in the sun,
An’ sung their sweetest notes;
An’ music jest come on the run
From all their purty throats!

But still that bird was silent
In summer time an’ fall;
He jest set still and listened,
An’ he wouldn’t sing at all!

But one night when them songsters
Was tired out an’ still,
An’ the wind sighed down the valley
An’ went creepin’ up the hill;

When the stars was all a-tremble
In the dreamin’ fields o’ blue,
An’ the daisy in the darkness—
Felt the fallin’ o’ the dew,—

There come a sound o’ melody
No mortal ever heard,
An’ all the birds seemed singin’
From the throat o’ one sweet bird!

Then the other birds went Mayin’
In a land too fur to call;
For there warn’t no use in stayin’
When one bird could sing for all!

Frank L. Stanton