The Grackle

The Grackle - meaning Summary

A Comic Bird Indictment

The poem is a brief, comic denunciation of the grackle. Nash catalogs the bird’s disagreeable traits—shrill voice, dark heart, yellow eye—and portrays it as aggressive toward other birds and humans. The tone is amusedly contemptuous, ending with a playful, grandiose label that frames the bird as a zoological embarrassment. The poem relies on witty insult and rhyme to make a sharp, humorous character sketch rather than a literal natural history.