Poet and Crow

POET

For once, old ebon buccaneer,

A bit of panegyric hear.

A few yet walk the earth

Who know your place and worth.

We dare avow it was your croak

That first the mother silence broke,

And beardless Time stared round,

Astonished at the sound.

An elemental, cosmic hymn,

Close as the bark is to the limb,

None of the wild might trimmed away,

Native as sunlight to the day,

Your song, in valley and on hill,

Holds fast the hale, unchanging art

Of Nature, her unbroken will,

The secret of her sturdy heart.

That gride—indigenous, grim—

That rasp on horror's rim,

In one ear rings forever true;

It thrills one bosom through and through,—

Nature's. To her you sing,

To her, to her you cling;

Your whole demeanor is devotion,—

All that grave and stately motion,

That scorn of them that dare be bold

Against the ancient iron mould.

Courage from claw to beak,

You brace us, worn and weak;

'T is marrow for the bones when forth

You sally 'gainst the braggart North,

Clinch with him as mixed foe with foe

The elements, long, long ago,

When slow toward form the crude earth curled,

And chaos woke, and was a world.

But you have, too, your gracious ways;

Right well you love the buddy days,

The rondeaus that the robins sing,

The bluebird music, sweet with Spring.

Then joy it is to see

You on the dreamy tree,

Armored in darkness, in your throat

The potence of the olden note,

Great faith's own minstrelsy:

"Let none despair, nor once forget;

Lo, there is corn in Egypt yet!"

And when 't is summer in the land,

And all the rule is love's own hand,

Then in yon speary field of mine

Courtly you swagger, stride, and shine,

Liege lord, by immemorial right,

Throughout the kingdom of God's light.

CROW

I 'm a prince of the air,

One scarcely made to scare

At the like of man or his image;

I 'm Crow, old Crow, stiff up for a scrimmage:

And it 's out in the morn,

When the dew is on the corn,

 For to fill my maw—

 Caw, caw, caw!

You are you, I am Crow,

A thing or two I know:

I sniff the trigger and the barrel,

Then off I flop, I flop and I carol,—

And it 's out in the morn,

When the dew is on the corn,

 For to fill my maw—

 Caw, caw, caw!

I am Crow, you are you,

I know a thing or two;

A man may be of straw,

But crow is tough stuff from beak to claw;

And it 's out in the morn,

When the dew is on the corn,

 For to fill my maw—

 Caw, caw, caw!

I was born on the hill,

And have always had my will;

I am grit and gristle and brain,

My every feather is dyed in the grain:

And it 's out in the morn,

When the dew is on the corn,

 For to fill my maw—

 Caw, caw, caw!