The Changeling by Cicely Fox Smith at Old Poetry

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Look! said the hedge-sparrow, 'isn't he fine?
Nobody else has a child like mine!
Look at his appetite — look at his size —
Look at his beak — and his wings — and his eyes!
Every day he keeps growing and growing,
And what he will be, well, there isn't no knowing!
Flies by the dozen and worms by the score,
Whatever he gets he keeps asking for more,
I'm sometimes afraid that he'll swallow me whole.
All the others fell out of the nest,
I was sorry, but there — it was all for the best.
Just you look at him! Isn't he fine?
Was ever a child such a whopper as mine?'

Notes

From ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN, by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Methuen & Co., London, UK, © 1933, p. 22.

In the book the poet shows a picture of a cuckoo chick dwarfing a hedge sparrow and writes of the cuckoo's predilection for laying eggs in other bird's nests.

Jim Saville