Three Little Birds In A Row

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Three Little Birds In A Row

by Stephen Crane

Three little birds in a row
Sat musing.
A man passed near that place.
Then did the little birds nudge each other.

They said, “He thinks he can sing.”
They threw back their heads to laugh.
With quaint countenances
They regarded him.
They were very curious,
Those three little birds in a row.

____________________________

This is a free verse poem, written in two stanzas (one four-lines, the second six-lines) about clique behavior, judgment, gossip, and cruelty. But as the perpetrators are birds, the message is a little bit humorous and not too heavy-handed.

The first stanza sets up the scene. The birds are almost immediately personified in Line 2, with the description of them as “musing.” That’s not normal bird behavior. The reality of their personification comes through in the second stanza, though.

Without knowing him, and without evidence that the man could or could not sing, they laughed at the idea that he could. The line from the Speaker that drives home the moral failure of the birds is line 9.

They were very curious,

The Speaker provided no evidence at all of this. Thus, we read the line with a bit of intended sarcasm. Maybe the birds should have watched more ‘Ted Lasso.’ (Language warning for the scene.)

Stephen Crane (and Ted Lasso) both give you the warning that one should be curious, and gather facts, before making assumptions. While it is true that most birds provide pleasant chirps, and some men cannot carry a tune, there are some who can draw crowds of tens of thousands to hear them sing. When is the lsat time a bird did that?