The Mocking-Bird
Hear! hear! hear!Listen! the wordOf the mocking-bird!Hear! hear! hear!I will make all clear;I will let you knowWhere the footfalls goThat through the thicket and over the hillAllure, allure.How the bird-voice cleavesThrough the weft of leavesWith a leap and a thrillLike the flash of a weaver's shuttle, swift and sudden and sure!
And la, he is gone--even while I turnThe wisdom of his runes to learn.He knows the mystery of the wood,The secret of the solitude;But he will not tell, he will not tell,For all he promises so well.
About this text
The Mocking-Bird is in the public domain. This text is taken from More Songs From Vagabondia, Project Gutenberg ebook #18007; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bliss Carman, The Mocking-Bird, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/the-mocking-bird.html, id L24692.
Form and metre
The Mocking-Bird is 19 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAACCDEFFDE hearA · wordB · birdB · hearA · clearA · knowC · goC · hillD · allureE · cleavesF · leavesF · thrillD · sureE
- 2 AA--BB turnA · learnA · wood · solitude · tellB · wellB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hear! hear! hear! | 3 | ··· |
| Listen! the word | 4 | /˘·· |
| Of the mocking-bird! | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Hear! hear! hear! | 3 | ··· |
| I will make all clear; | 5 | ····· |
| I will let you know | 5 | ····· |
| Where the footfalls go | 5 | ··/·· |
| That through the thicket and over the hill | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Allure, allure. | 4 | ˘/˘/ |
| How the bird-voice cleaves | 5 | ····· |
| Through the weft of leaves | 5 | ····· |
| With a leap and a thrill | 6 | ······ |
| Like the flash of a weaver's shuttle, swift and sudden and sure! | 15 | ·····/˘/˘··/˘·· |
| And la, he is gone--even while I turn | 9 | ·····/··· |
| The wisdom of his runes to learn. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| He knows the mystery of the wood, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The secret of the solitude; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| But he will not tell, he will not tell, | 9 | ········· |
| For all he promises so well. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.