Besides this sonnet Mr. Lanier wrote a longer `To Our Mocking-bird',
consisting of three sonnets, and `Bob', a charming account, in prose,
of the life and death of the bird apostrophized.
In his `Birds and Poets' (Boston, 1877), Mr. John Burroughs says
that he knows of only two noteworthy poetical tributes to the mocking-bird,
those by Whitman and by Wilde, both of which he quotes.
But since the appearance of his book many poems have been written
to the mocking-bird, several of which are of enduring worth.
Indeed, several noteworthy poems had been published
before the appearance of Mr. Burroughs's essay, as will appear
from the list below. In a search of two days I found
thirty-two different authors paying tribute to our marvelous singer:
Julia Bacon (see J. W. Davidson's `Living Writers of the South'.
New York: Carleton, 1869), St. L. L. Carter (ib.), Edna P. Clarke
(`Century', 24. 391, July, 1893), Fortunatus Crosby (`Davidson', l.c.),
J. R. Drake (Duyckinck's `Cyclopaedia of American Literature'.
New York, 1855), R. T. W. Duke, Jr. (`Southern Bivouac', 2. 631, March, 1887),
W. T. Dumas (`The Golden Day and Miscellaneous Poems', Philadelphia, 1893),
F. (`Southern Literary Messenger', Richmond, Va., 5. 523, August, 1839),
H. L. Flash (`Davidson', l.c.), Va. Gentleman (`Harper's Magazine',
15. 566, September, 1857), Caroline Gilman (May's `American Female Poets',
Philadelphia, 1865), Hannah F. Gould (`Davidson', l.c.),
Paul Granald (`So. Lit. Mes.', 8, 508, August, 1842),
P. H. Hayne (`Poems', Boston, 1882: two), W. H. Hayne (`Century', 24. 676,
September, 1893), C. W. Hubner (`Poems and Essays', New York, 1881),
C. Lanier (`Sunday-school Times', Phila., July 8, 1893),
S. Lanier (two, as above cited), Gen. Edwin G. Lee (`Southern Metropolis',
Baltimore, 1869), A. B. Meek (in his `Songs and Poems of the South',
New York, 1857), W. Mitchell (`Scribner's Magazine', 11. 171, December, 1875),
Nugator (`So. Lit. Mes.', 4. 356, June, 1838), C. J. O'Malley
(`So. Bivouac', 2. 698, April, 1887), Albert Pike (Stedman & Hutchinson's
`Amer. Lit.', New York, 1891, vol. 6), D. Robinson (`Century', 24. 480,
July, 1893), Clinton Scollard (`Pictures in Song', New York, 1884),
H. J. Stockard (`The Century', xlviii. 898, Oct., 1894),
T (`So. Lit. Mes.', 11. 117, February, 1845), Maurice Thompson
(`Poems', Boston, 1892: several; also `Lippincott's Magazine', 32. 624,
December, 1883), L. V. (`So. Lit. Mes.', 10. 414, July, 1844),
Walt Whitman (`Burroughs', l.c., also in Whitman's `Poems'), R. H. Wilde
(`Burroughs', l.c., and Stedman & Hutchinson's `Am. Lit.', vol. 5).
Roughly speaking, the poems may be divided into two classes --
first those that, as in the Indian legend cited below,
make out the mocking-bird only or chiefly a thief and thing of evil,
and second those that find him, though a borrower, original and great.
The former view, fortunately upheld by few, is strikingly set forth
in Granald's `The Mock-bird and the Sparrow'. After describing minutely
the various songs of the mocking-bird and emphasizing
that they all come from other birds, the author gives the dialogue
between the mock-bird and the sparrow. The former taunted the latter
and insisted on his singing; and
"The sparrow cock'd a knowing eye,
And made him this most tart reply --
`You steal from all and call it wit,
But I prefer my simple "twit".'"
But the latter view is espoused by most of the writers mentioned,
notably and nobly by Drake, the Haynes, the Laniers, Lee, Meek, and Thompson,
the poet-laureate of the mocking-bird, whose poems should be read
by every lover of nature and especially of the mocking-bird.
As Thompson's tributes are all too long for quotation, I give here Meek's,
in the hope that I may rescue it from the long oblivion of an out-of-print.
My attention was called to it by my friend, Dr. C. H. Ross,
to whom every reader will be indebted along with myself. It runs as follows:
"From the vale, what music ringing,
Fills the bosom of the night;
On the sense, entranced, flinging
Spells of witchery and delight!
O'er magnolia, lime and cedar,
From yon locust-top, it swells,
Like the chant of serenader,
Or the rhymes of silver bells!
Listen! dearest, listen to it!
Sweeter sounds were never heard!
'Tis the song of that wild poet --
Mime and minstrel -- Mocking-bird.
"See him, swinging in his glory,
On yon topmost bending limb!
Carolling his amorous story,
Like some wild crusader's hymn!
Now it faints in tones delicious
As the first low vow of love!
Now it bursts in swells capricious,
All the moonlit vale above!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Why is't thus, this sylvan Petrarch
Pours all night his serenade?
'Tis for some proud woodland Laura,
His sad sonnets all are made!
But he changes now his measure --
Gladness bubbling from his mouth --
Jest and gibe, and mimic pleasure --
Winged Anacreon of the South!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Bird of music, wit and gladness,
Troubadour of sunny climes,
Disenchanter of all sadness, --
Would thine art were in my rhymes.
O'er the heart that's beating by me,
I would weave a spell divine;
Is there aught she could deny me,
Drinking in such strains as thine?
Listen! dearest, etc."
As is well known, the mocking-bird is often called the American nightingale.
As to their relative merits as singers, here is the judgment of one
that has heard both birds, Professor James A. Harrison (`The Critic',
New York, 2. 284, December 13, 1884): "Well, it is my honest opinion
that philomel will not compare with the singer of the South
in sweetness, versatility, passion, or lyrical beauty. The mocking-bird
-- better the echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds,
as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents --
is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre -- Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed;
as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist,
a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above
all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described."
The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's `To an English Nightingale':
"What do you think of me?
Do I sing by rote?
Or by note?
Have I a parrot's echo-throat?
Oh no! I caught my strains
From Nature's freshest veins.
. . . . .
"He
A match for me!
No more than a wren or a chickadee!
Mine is the voice of the young and strong,
Mine the soul of the brave and free!"
This self-appreciation is confirmed by the greatest authority on birds,
Audubon: "There is probably no bird in the world that possesses
all the musical qualifications of this king of song, who has derived all
from Nature's self. Yes, reader, all!"
It will be interesting and instructive to compare the tributes
to the mocking-bird with Keats's `Ode to a Nightingale',
Shelley's `To a Skylark', and Wordsworth's `To the Skylark'.
Aside from Audubon's `Birds of America' and Ridgway's
`Manual of North American Birds', the student may consult with profit
Burroughs's `Birds and Poets', Thompson's `In the Haunts of the Mocking-bird'
(`The Atlantic', 54. 620, November, 1884), various articles
by Olive Thorne Miller in `The Atlantic' (vol. 54 on), and Winterfield's
`The Mocking-bird, an Indian Legend' (`The American Whig Review',
New York, 1. 497, May, 1845).
14. Wilde compares the mocking-bird to Yorick and to Jacques;
Meek, to Petrarch; Lanier, to Keats, in `To Our Mocking-bird',
as does Wm. H. Hayne:
"Each golden note of music greets
The listening leaves divinely stirred,
As if the vanished soul of Keats
Had found its new birth in a bird."