Ben King's Verse/The Blackbird and the Thrush

by Benjamin Franklin King

"It's my idee," a blackbird said,
   As he sat in a mulberry bush,
"It's my idee, it seems to me,
   I can warble as well as a thrush."

"Let 'er go, let 'er go," said a carrion crow,
   As he swung on an old clothesline,
"For I won't budge, but I'll act as judge,
   And the winner I'll ask to dine."

In a minor key the thrush sang he, .
   'Way up in an elm remote,
And twice and thrice like paradise
   Songs welled from the warbler's throat.
   
Then a rooster he, in his usual glee,
   Flew up on the barnyard fence,
And he crowed and he crowed; then he said :
   "I'll be blowed
If that isn't simply immense."

Then the blackbird, well, he listened a spell
   And began in garrulous run,
But he wasn't admired, for a farmer tired—
   Well, he up and fired a gun.

Then the black crow said, as he rested his head:
   "I want to go somewhere and die."
And a young cock-a-too said: "I do, too,"
   And a parrot said : "So do I."