I wandered out one rainy day <br />And heard a bird with merry joys <br />Cry 'wet my foot' for half the way; <br />I stood and wondered at the noise, <br /> <br />When from my foot a bird did flee-- <br />The rain flew bouncing from her breast <br />I wondered what the bird could be, <br />And almost trampled on her nest. <br /> <br />The nest was full of eggs and round-- <br />I met a shepherd in the vales, <br />And stood to tell him what I found. <br />He knew and said it was a quail's, <br /> <br />For he himself the nest had found, <br />Among the wheat and on the green, <br />When going on his daily round, <br />With eggs as many as fifteen. <br /> <br />Among the stranger birds they feed, <br />Their summer flight is short and low; <br />There's very few know where they breed, <br />And scarcely any where they go.<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/quail-s-nest/
