Explore "The Blackbird and the Rooks" by Dinah Mulock on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A SLENDER young Blackbird built in a thorn-tree / A spruce little fellow as ever could be; / His bill was so yellow, his feathers so black, / So long was his tail, and so glossy his back, / That good Mrs. B., who sat hatching her eggs, / And only just left them to stretch her poor legs, / And pick for a minute the worm she preferred, / Thought there never was seen such a beautiful bird.
And such a kind husband! how early and late / He would sit at the top of the old garden gate, / And sing, just as merry as if it were June, / Being ne'er out of patience, or temper, or tune. / "So unlike those Rooks, dear; from morning till night / They seem to do nothing but quarrel and fight, / And wrangle and jangle, and plunder -- while we / Sit, honest and safe, in our pretty thorn-tree."