'I want to be new,' said the duckling. <br />'O, ho!' said the wise old owl, <br />While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling <br />To tell all the rest of the fowl. <br /> <br />'I should like a more elegant figure,' <br />That child of a duck went on. <br />'I should like to grow bigger and bigger, <br />Until I could swallow a swan. <br /> <br />'I _won't_ be the bond slave of habit, <br />I _won't_ have these webs on my toes. <br />I want to run round like a rabbit, <br />A rabbit as red as a rose. <br /> <br />'I _don't_ want to waddle like mother, <br />Or quack like my silly old dad. <br />I want to be utterly other, <br />And _frightfully_ modern and mad.' <br /> <br />'Do you know,' said the turkey, 'you're quacking! <br />There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye; <br />And, if you're not utterly lacking, <br />You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!' <br /> <br />'I won't,' said the duckling. 'I'll lift him <br />A beautiful song, like a sheep; <br />And when I have--as it were--biffed him, <br />I'll give him my feathers to keep.' <br /> <br />Now the curious end of this fable, <br />So far as the rest ascertained, <br />Though they searched from the barn to the stable, <br />Was that _only his feathers remained_. <br /> <br />So he _wasn't_ the bond slave of habit, <br />And he _didn't_ have webs on his toes; <br />And _perhaps_ he runs round like a rabbit, <br />A rabbit as red as a rose.<br /><br />Alfred Noyes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-new-duckling/
