Stupidity Street 169 



plus their song. To take birds out of poetry 

 would be like taking tune out of music, noth- 

 ing left but idiotic jargon. 



Birds are poetry per se and cannot be replaced 

 by other living creatures in poems where they 

 figure, without turning fine poetry into caricature. 

 Here is the proof of the above statement; I will 

 first give Tennyson's Poet Song, then caricature 

 it by simply putting an animal in the place of the 

 bird. 



The rain had fallen, the Poet arose, 

 He pass'd through the town and out of the street; 

 A light wind blew from the gates of the sun 

 And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 

 And he sat him down in a lonely place 

 And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 

 That made the wild swan pause in her cloud, 

 And the lark drop down at his feet. 



The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 



The snake slipt under a spray, 



The wild Hawk stood with the down on his beak, 



And stared, with his foot on the prey. 



And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many 



songs, 



But never a one so gay 

 \For he sings of what the world will be 

 When the years have died away." 



Beginning with the last two lines of the first 

 verse : 



