Illegitimate

Where the common chickens strutted,
Pecking, scratching restlessly amid the stone,
He came, the golden pheasant and a thing of flame,
And lived, we thought, alone—
Altho' at night among the rest he hutted.
And then he left again for forests and the ways of air,
Gone as a flame goes, none knew where.

But one gray hen laid hidden eggs,
And when they hatched
Her chicks were different,
Dizened with spots of flame and golden thatched,
Trusting their wings more than their legs.

Only the farmer grumbled, weaving a netted hood
Across their little patch of sky
To curb the wingèd ones that wandered to the wood.