WINGED mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive 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 pourest a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song Like to the melancholy Jacques complain, Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, And sighing for thy motley coat again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOHENLINDEN by THOMAS CAMPBELL THE BLUEBIRD by EMILY DICKINSON THE LAST SUPPER by RAINER MARIA RILKE THE FIRST-FOOT by ALEXANDER ANDERSON PSALM 47 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: A CONVENT WITHOUT GOD by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE RIVER FIGHT; APRIL 18, 1862 by HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL |