Greenfinch and Linnet Bird - Stephen Sondheim

Green finch and linnet bird

Nightingale blackbird

How is it you sing

How can you jubilate

Sitting in cages

Never taking wing

Outside the sky waits

Beckoning beckoning

Just beyond the bars

How can you remain

Staring at the rain

Maddened by the stars

How is it you sing anything

How is it you sing

Green finch and linnet bird

Nightingale blackbird

How is it you sing

Whence comes this melody

Constantly floating

Is it rejoicing or merely a loaming

Are you discussing

Or fussing

Or simply dreaming

Are you crowing

Are you screaming

Ring dove and robinet

Is it for wages

Singing to be sold

Have you decided it's safer in cages

Singing when you're told

My cage has many rooms

Damask and dark

Nothing there sings

Not even my lark

Larks never will you know

When they're captive

Teach me to be more adaptive

Green finch and linnet bird

Nightingale blackbird

Teach me how to sing

If I cannot fly

Let me sing