Karl's Pipers

                              “More Song Mamma”
                                                        Karl.

Karl says “More!” & more let it be then;
    Song is a luxury cheaper than snarling;
He who wants less of it’s worse than a heathen,
    He who wants more is my beauty & darling.

Nature herself has a budget of ballads,
    More than her poets can copy in ages,
Piping to all her wee lasses & small lads,
    Back to her piping like linnets in cages.

Tipsy with light & as jolly as fiddles,
    Birds in the morning, when hedges are greening,
Twitter, & hitter, & chirp in your little ears,
    Over & over, to get out their meaning.

Bobolink tumbles out tremors & quavers,
    Having sipped bumpers of dew till he staggers,
Meadow-Lark whistles his merriest favors;
    Robin is gay as the quicker tongue-wagger.

Whippo’will whips away faster & faster,
    Largo, andante allegro, & presto!
Mockingbird tries to be everyone’s master,
    Doing his best to outdo what the rest do.

Little Wren pipes it as clear as a clarion,
    Song Sparrow tells you his loves in a roundel,
Chick-a-dee titters to hear them all carry on,
    Brown Thrush warbles with never a sound ill.

Rain in the apple-tree rustles & danced,
    Zephyr hums, caught in the tweek [?] of the Creeper,
Whisper the pines with a music that trances,
    Soft as the song in the dream of my Sleeper!

O, but I guess there’s a Lad in his crib here
    Sweeter than all, & as tuneful as they are;
He does not wait till the “peepers” get ?? here,
    He chirps cheerily in winter as May ??.

O, his delight is in words on a bender [?], 
    Taking this music & dancing together;
Karl is that bonny Boy, merry & tender,
    He is our bird & our soft summer weather.

Mamma discourses until, for the soul of her,
    All the odd ends of her wits are denied her,
“More!” cries Karl, like poor little Oliver,
    “More!” like the song of “a little more cider.”

So for her Little One, tender & merry,
    She has her Laureate volunteer Tennyson
Just as the Queen has, all but the sherry,
    Ready for love to sing ballads for any son.

So if he’ll toss me a kiss from the Jerseys –
    (Just how it’s done if his mother will show him)
I will weave Carlton a garland of verses,
    I will make all hearts dance in a Poem!