The Crow's Children - A 1874 Poem

A huntsman, bearing his gun afield,

Went whistling merrily;

When he heard the blackest of black crows

Call out from a withered tree;

 

"You are going to kill the thievish birds,

And I would if I were you;

But you musn't touch my family,

Whatever else you do?"

 

"I am only going to kill the birds

That are eating up my crop;

And if your young ones do such things

Be sure they'll have to stop."

 

"Oh," said the crow, "my children

Are the best ones ever born;

There isn't one among them all

Would steal a grain of corn."

 

"But how shall I know which ones they are?

Do they resemble you?"

"Oh no," said the crow, "they're the prettiest birds

And the whitest that ever flew!"

 

So off west the sportsman, whistling

And off, too, went his gun;

And its starting echoes never ceased

Again till the day was done.

 

And the old crow sat untroubled,

Cawing away in her nook;

For she said, "He'll never kill my birds

Since I told him how they look.

 

"Now there's the hawk, my neighbor,

She'll see what she will see, soon;

And that saucy, whistling blackbird

May have to change his tune!"

 

When, lo! she saw the hunter

Taking his homeward track,

With a string of crows as long as his gun

Hanging down his back.

 

"Alack, alack," said the mother,

"What in the world have you done?

You promised to spare my pretty birds,

And you've killed them every one."

 

"Your birds!" said the puzzled hunter;

"Why I found them in my corn;

And besides, they are black and ugly

As any that ever were born!"

 

"Get out of my sight, you stupid!"

Said the angriest of crows;

"How good and fair her children are

There's none but a parent knows."

 

"Ah, I see, I see," said the hunter,

"But not as you do, quite;

It takes a mother to be so blind

She can't tell black from white."

January 30, 1874. Vermont Phoenix 41(5): 1.