THE WRYNECKS NEST
            John Clare
                p. 1835
=========================

That summer bird its oft repeated note
Chirps from the dotterel ash and in the hole
The green woodpecker made in years remote
It makes its nest--where peeping idlers strole
In anxious plundering moods--and bye and bye
The wrynecks curious eggs as white as snow
While squinting in the hollow tree they spy
The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye
And waves her head in terror too and fro
Speckled and veined in various shades of brown
And then a hissing noise assails the clown
And quick with hasty terror in his breast
From the trees knotty trunk he sluthers down
And thinks the strange bird guards a serpents nest


========
========