Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CHANGES, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHANGES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What bird, if you could be a bird
Last Line: For whiter-throated nancy!
Subject(s): Birds; Desire; Women


WHAT bird, if you could be a bird,
Would you desire to be?
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!





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