Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/232



HERE once was a bird that lived up in a tree,

And all he could whistle was "Fiddle-dee-dee"—

A very provoking, unmusical song

For one to be whistling the summer day long!

Yet always contented and busy was he

With that vocal recurrence of "Fiddle-dee-dee."

Hard by lived a brave little soldier of four,

That weird iteration repented him sore;

"I prithee, Dear-Mother-Mine! fetch me my gun,

For, by our St. Didy! the deed must be done

That shall presently rid all creation and me

Of that ominous bird and his 'Fiddle-dee-dee'!"

Then out came Dear-Mother-Mine, bringing her son

His awfully truculent little red gun;

The stock was of pine and the barrel of tin,

The "bang" it came out where the bullet went in—

The right kind of weapon I think you'll agree

For slaying all fowl that go "Fiddle-dee-dee"!