O Blackbird, try another tune— You've sung that note for much too long! You knew quite complicated airs Last year, and then you perched among The branches of the flowering pear Where song-birds ought to be, but now You poise upon my chimney-pot As if you really wished to grow Still blacker from the smuts. How can You hope to guard your voice from smoke? And yet I know that some fine day I'll wake, as in the past I woke, To hear that you've remembered all The music of last year Indeed The gifted poets, like yourself, Have chosen smoke and smuts instead Of ease and cleanness, many times— Sitting in taverns when they might Have lived at court, grown rich and sleek, And carolled for a king's delight. But all the same, the spring's at hand, So try at least another tune! Begin those gay exciting scales You knew so well, last May and June. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NURSING HOME: THE DOLL by KAREN SWENSON HURRAHING IN HARVEST by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS MESSIAH; A SACRED ECLOGUE IN IMITATION OF VIRGIL'S POLLIO by ALEXANDER POPE GARDEN DAYS: 3. THE FLOWERS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE CHILD ALONE: 4. PICTURE-BOOKS IN WINTER by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON |