Out by my chamber window there,
In the mulberry-tops, in the August air,
The mock-bird sings his devil-may-care—
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
Rash birdy! have you no monishing fear—
Chiding a monarch as you do here?
I'm regal in all this little sphere!
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
You laying down law for the village queen,
Who from her envied height serene
Gives a code to its best, I ween!
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
Ha! see, I am decking my "throat of snow"
With his costly gems, (he called it so.)
What if little Barefoot beg below?
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
Look, little sage, in my bright blue eyes!
Their color was caught from the summer skies.
He says it; and ah! he is very wise.
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
Ha! self-wise bird, I am fooling you.
My lover is not more gallant than true,
And we'll go tripping it through the dew—
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
What! wrong to go by the shiny birch
That shades the lane to the village church?
Wrong, may be, to leave you in the lurch?
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
O birdy! I'll be a love-in-the-mist,
In my loom-fog veil, when the bride is kissed,
Blushing through filmy folds—ah! hist!
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"
Well, welladay for the wedding-bells!
Arch-misanthrope, what is this he tells
As whistle and chime go down the dells?
"It's wrong! It's wrong!"