To The Mockingbird

To The Mockingbird

by Wilde

Wing'd mimic of the woods; thou motley fool,

Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?

Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule

Pursue thy fellows with jest and jibe;

Wit, sophist songster, Yorick of thy tribe,

Thou spotive satirist of Nature's school;

To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,

Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of misrule;

For such thou art by day, but all night long

Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive solemn strain,

As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song

Like to the melancholy Jaques complain,

Musing on falsehood, folly, vice and wrong,

And singing for thy motley coat again.