@3WHAT bird, if you could be a bird, Would you desire to be?@1 Such was the questioning I heard Behind the tulip-tree, Where Nance and Meg and Jenny sat, All showing careless inches Of stocking to the hungry gnat, And chirped like fifty finches! I thereupon began to think What changes best would suit: For Meg, who's plump, I chose a pink, To hop among the fruit. For freckled Jenny's birdlike change, Because she's never-resting, I picked the busy quaketail's range Of flirt and cheep and questing. Too hard the cherryfinch's peck For Nance to wear his shape; Too red the robin's flooded neck, Too brown the titlark's nape. As feathering well the dearest third According to my fancy, A whitethroat seemed the only bird For whiter-throated Nancy! |