The Crow

Halloo, Friend Crow – it is grand you are,

While ogling me so calmly!

Black friend, we're both of us out of time,

We're shunned and banished by my kin,

We are tramps and it's our Fate to wear

A smile without and a sob within.

'Tis said you're a heartless rogue,

The worst that ever flew:

Now listen, Crow, for I can show

How I do know that is not true.

Through a forest dark and gloomy,

Where the silence slept around me,

Where the hemlocks gazed upon me,

Gazed and wondered, there wandered.

From the topmost spreading branches

Of a tall and stately hemlock

Came a sound of gentle cawing,

Oh, so gentle, oh so wooing,

Little voices answered faintly,

Little voices crowing quaintly,

From the topmost spreading branches

of a proud and stately hemlock.

Long I listened to their prattle,

Oh, so gentle, oh, so tender!

They were kin of yours, Friend Crow!

So blink not, Friend, for I know you now!

You are like a son of America, Crow,

With naught but croaks for me,

But no man's croaks nor jokes can alter

WHAT MAY BE.

Outcasts are we here on earth,

Jibes we know, but little mirth;

Yet ne'er despair and ne'er despise,

Perhaps we'll SING in Paradise.