Oh for a falcon’s wing to bear
Me onward to my home!”—Morris.
General Morris is not less successful in the lighter and livelier freaks of poetic fancy, as we hope to prove by a quotation from “The New York Mirror,” in which the moral of the lines is not their least merit. The melodies of the various birds which roost among the wild recesses of the rocks, or haunt the mountain forest, or sweep along the waters, are sent forth hourly in sounds of “unwritten music.” But the cry “most musical, most melancholy,” comes at the twilight hour from the clear throat of the whip-poor-will, at intervals, through the summer’s night: nor is it ever heard or seen by day; it may be called the sad unknown. The words, “whip-poor-will,” are divided into three shrill, distinct notes, and express the sounds as perfectly as if uttered by the human voice. The poetry annexed, is equally expressive of the melancholy mystery which seems to mark the mourning burden of its lonely song.
TO THE WHIP-POOR-WILL.
“Why dost thou come at set of sun,
Those pensive words to say?
Why whip poor Will?—What has he done?
And who is Will, I pray?
“Why come from you leaf-shaded hill,
A suppliant at my door?—