Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHANGELING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have two horns upon my head
Last Line: This wild-heart thing you never bore?
Alternate Author Name(s): Davis, Fannie Stearns


I HAVE two horns upon my head.
They please me, being garlanded
With creepy pine, and berries red
From some old secret hawthorn-tree.

I have two horns, and hoofs also:
Brown questing hoofs, that clip and go
Over the mountain, high and low,
From sky-crack to the droning sea.

My Mother would have shame of me
If she could see -- if she could see
Those horns and hoofs that make too free
With what she bore and bred so straight.

She taught me to be still and good;
To walk demure as maidens should;
Wear dainty slippers, silken snood,
And not come loitering home too late.

But now I dance, I dance all night,
By faint star-light or fierce moon-light,
Over the mountain, -- till the white
Dumb dawn comes fingering, soothing me.

With whom I dance, with whom I sing, --
Why need my Mother know this thing?
In my green chamber slumbering
She finds me sweet and white, when she

Strokes down my curls. She does not know
Two horns beneath her fingers grow;
Rough horns: and I have hoofs also,
Not feet like pale flow'rs on the floor.

Oh, if you met me on the hill,
Moon-maddened, dancing to my fill,
O Mother, could you love me still, --
This wild-heart thing you never bore?





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net