Part 2

But in a surprisingly short time his tail-feathers grew out again, the rest of his apparel reappeared fresh and new, and he lifted up his head: insomuch that whenever we wish to fill the house with a gay, confident, dashing, riotous, innocent, sparkling glory of jubilation, we have only to set Bob's cage where a spot of sunshine will fall on it. His beads of eyes glisten, his form grows intense, up goes his beak, and he is off.

Finally we have sometimes discussed the question: is it better on the whole, that Bob should have lived in a cage than in the wildwood? There are conflicting opinions about it: but one of us is clear that it is. He argues that although there are many songs which are never heard, as there are many eggs which never hatch, yet the general end of a song is to be heard, as that of an egg is to be hatched. He further argues that Bob's life in his cage has been one long blessing to several people who stood in need of him: whereas in the woods, leaving aside the probability of hawks and bad boys, he would not have been likely to gain one appreciative listener for a single half-hour out of each year. And, as I have already mercifully released you from several morals (continues this disputant) which I might have drawn from Bob, I am resolved that no power on earth shall prevent me from drawing this final one.--We have heard much of "the privileges of genius," of "the right of the artist to live out his own existence free from the conventionalities of society," of "the un-morality of art," and the like. But I do protest that the greater the artist, and the more profound his pity toward the fellow-man for whom he passionately works, the readier will be his willingness to forego the privileges of genius and to cage himself in the conventionalities, even as the mocking-bird is caged. His struggle against these will, I admit, be the greatest: he will feel the bitterest sense of their uselessness in restraining _him_ from wrong-doing. But, nevertheless, one consideration will drive him to enter the door and get contentedly on his perch: his fellow-men, his fellow-men. These he can reach through the respectable bars of use and wont; in his wild thickets of lawlessness they would never hear him, or, hearing, would never listen. In truth this is the sublimest of self-denials, and none but a very great artist can compass it: to abandon the sweet green forest of liberty, and live a whole life behind needless constraints, for the more perfect service of his fellow-men.

Epilogue

To Our Mocking-Bird

Died of a Cat, May, 1878

I

Trillets of humor,--shrewdest whistle-wit,-- Contralto cadences of grave desire Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split About the slim young widow who doth sit And sing above,--midnights of tone entire,-- Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire;-- Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave And trickling down the beak,--discourses brave Of serious matter that no man may guess,-- Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress-- All these but now within the house we heard: O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?

II

Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate, And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast, My bird--wit, songs, and all--thy richest freight Since that fell time when in some wink of fate Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away, And harried him with hope and horrid play-- Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song-- Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong. 'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, _wrong's_ the word-- To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.

III

Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right. The Lord was fain, at some late festal time, That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme, And thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night, Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite, Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime, O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme, --Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise, Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats, 'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes, And mark the music of thy wood-conceits, And halfway pause on some large, courteous word, And call thee "Brother," O thou heavenly Bird!

Baltimore, 1878.