Listen! dearest, etc.

"Bird of music, wit and gladness,
Troubadour of sunny climes,
Disenchanter of all sadness, --
Would thine art were in my rhymes.
O'er the heart that's beating by me,
I would weave a spell divine;
Is there aught she could deny me,
Drinking in such strains as thine?
Listen! dearest, etc."

As is well known, the mocking-bird is often called the American nightingale.
As to their relative merits as singers, here is the judgment of one
that has heard both birds, Professor James A. Harrison (`The Critic',
New York, 2. 284, December 13, 1884): "Well, it is my honest opinion
that philomel will not compare with the singer of the South
in sweetness, versatility, passion, or lyrical beauty. The mocking-bird
-- better the echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds,
as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents --
is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre -- Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed;
as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist,
a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above
all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described."
The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's `To an English Nightingale':

"What do you think of me?
Do I sing by rote?
Or by note?
Have I a parrot's echo-throat?