That summer bird its oft-repeated note Chirps from the dottrel ash, and in the hole The green woodpecker made in years remote, It makes its nest. When peeping idlers stroll In anxious plundering moods, they by and by The wryneck's curious eggs, as white as snow, While squinting in the hollow tree, espy. The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye, And waves her head in terror to and fro, Speckled and veined with various shades of brown; And then a hissing noise assails the clown. Quickly, with hasty terror in his breast, From the tree's knotty trunk he slides adown, And thinks the strange bird guards a serpent's nest. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEFORE SEDAN by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON THE WIND SUFFERS by LAURA RIDING GARDEN DAYS: 2. NEST EGGS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN by ALFRED TENNYSON MY JEWEL CASE by BESSE BURNETT BELL SONNETS FOR NEW YORK CITY: 2. A POLITICAL 'BOSS' by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT |