The Partridge

Excessive coition

Marks off the males;

Their acquisition

Of mates entails

Fierce competition

Which so depletes

That often the loser

To sex submits

And conqueror

Accommodates.

It was believed

Desire tormented

Females-relieved

By the winds that vented

Male odors believed

To make them pregnant.

Toward his brood

The male is malignant,

Finding its crude

Fawning repugnant;

Soon after birth,

Their mother conceals

The young. Their worth,

Even in shells,

Was such that earth

Or procryptic crust

Was of no avail

Against the lust

Of a childless female

Scouring the dust.

What kind of note

Recalls the snatched

To their nest but

To be redispatched? . . .

It seems by rote

Partridges all-

At the very first

Tremor of footfall-

Covered with dirt

As for burial

Freeze on their backs.

Well aware

Of his virtue and lack-

The cunning desire

To live on the rack

Of perversity-

Man, first and last,

For his bride-to-be

This bird once cast . . .

In a pear tree.

Structure

50 lines · 10 stanzas