THE MOCKING-HOARSE BIRD
Good fowl, though I would speak to thee
With wonted geniality,
And Oxford charm in my address,
It's not quite easy, I confess:
Suaviter in modo's hard
When poets trample one's front yard,
And this is such an enormous crew
That you've got trailing after you!
I'd washed my youngest child but four,
Put the milk-bottles out the door,
Paid my wife's hat-bill with no sigh
(Ah, happy wife! Ah, happy I!)
Tossed down (see essays) then my pen
To be a private citizen,
Written about that in the Post,
When lo, upon the lawn a host
Of Poets, sprung upon my sight
Each eager for a Poem to write!
To a less placid bard you'd be
A flat domestic tragedy,—
Bird—grackle—nay, I'd scarcely call
You bird—a mere egg you, that's all—
Only a bad egg has the nerve
To poach (a pun!) on my preserve!
To P.Q.S. and X.Y.D.
(Both columnists whom you should see)
And L.M.N (a man who never
Columns a word that isn't clever,)
And B.C.D. (who scintillates
Much more than most who get his rates)
A thing like this would be a trial....
It is to me, there's no denial.
Why, Bird, if they would sing of you,
Or Sin, or Broken Hearts, or Rue,
Or what Young Devils they all are,
Or Scarlet Dames, or the First Star,
Or South-Sea-Jazz-Hounds sorrowing,
It would be quite another thing:
But, Bird, here they come mousing round
On my suburban, sacred ground,
And see my happiness—it's flat,
You wretched Bird, they'll sing of that!
They'll hymn my Happy Hearth, and later
The joys of my Refrigerator,
Burst into song about the points
Of Babies, Married Peace, Hot Joints,
The Jimmy-Pipe I often carol,
My Commutation, my Rain-Barrel,
And each Uncontroverted Fact
With which my poetry is packed ...
In short, base Bird, they'll sing like me,
And then, where will my living be?
Franklin P. Adams
(Coldly ignoring the roistering of his friends, addresses the Grackle with bitterness:)