"Catbird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of religion are like the catbird. When it is away from its nest, it is one of the sweetest of the northern warblers, and so it is often called the northern mocking-bird; but when it is close to its nest, you will hear only a harsh, discordant note. It has no sweetness in its voice while at its nest. Some people reserve all ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... was quick to know and love the birds of hedge and field and woods. The martins that built in his gourds on the tall pole had opened his eyes. The red and bluebirds, the thrush, the wren, the robin, the catbird, and song sparrows were ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... seldom heard till toward the last of April. The ground-birds are all tree-singers or air-singers; they must have an elevated stage to speak from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like its congeners the catbird and the mockingbird, delights in a high branch of some solitary tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour together. This bird is the great American chipper. There is no other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military decision ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... they should; Something too much one's eyes encountered then Of serious youth and funeral-visaged men; The solemn elders saw life's mournful half,— Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. Kind, faithful Nature! While the sour-eyed Scot— Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot— Talks only of his preacher and his kirk,— Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work,— Praying and fasting till his meagre face Gains its due length, the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
