Classic Poem

'Twas in the merry month of May,
When nature all around is gay;
When Flora calls the nymphs and swains
To scent the fragrance of the plains;
When no observer else was by,
But fancy and the poet's eye:
Two birds, a Linnet and a Thrush,
Perch'd on a wide spread May-blown bush,
Pour'd forth the softest, sweetest lays,
That e'er were form'd to female praise,
While Echo, to the distant grove,
Convey'd the tender song of love,

The song was hush'd, the Linnet cry'd
(And hung her downy head and sigh'd)
How hard the fate of us poor birds,
Who want the aid of human words;
The Poet, if to nature true,
Is but a type of me and you,
Yet letters consecrate his name,
His songs must fill the trump of fame,
While we are doom'd to die and rot,
Our plumage lost, our songs forgot.

Ah! cease this moan the Thrush reply'd,
To covet fame is empty pride,
The filliest bird that wings the wood
Still thinks his song as your's is good;
And so, among the human race,
Each empty head and vacant face,
Who loses three parts of his time
In torturing harmless sense to rhyme,
Think that with Whitehead, Mason, Grey,
That he as well can form the lay,
And foots enough there will be found,
To echo all their nonsense round,
'Till death advancing, seals their eyes,
And then their turgid volume dies.
— Once snar'd, I trod the human stage,
Parading in a narrow cage,
'Till careless Nelly set me free,
Left ope the door to liberty;
Yet many things, I understood,
Were to our reputations good,
Our songs they learn, our parts improve,
And treat us with the tenderest love;
Our make, our plumage too they prize,
And paint us in our various dies;
One Spackman, blest with so much art,
He copies us in every part;
In nature's colours still we shine,
And all but life's in the design,
Whilst Emulation swells the mind,
And music's lov'd by human kind,
So long, sweet bird! will last your praise,
So long be priz'd the Linnet's lays:
Among our fellows of the wood,
Our parts will ne'er be understood;
" No poet can abide a brother;
" Wits are game-cocks to one another. "