Reflections on the propensities towards vice and virtue in the world of chickens

By the Reverend H. Bugle-Cumberpatch

1)

Why, people of a contemplative turn

Doth envy rage within the chicken soul? 

If Chicken A spies Chicken B with worm,

Why doth Chook A completely lose control? 

Observe a platter o'erspread with grain -

A fulsome feast for four of chicken brood.

Yet Chicken A will peck with might and main

At all who venture near her wealth of food. 

Yet many seeds, and many more, will show

That MAN will tender thus to all her flock;

She lives in bounty, but she does not know,

And all day looks for slaters under rock. 

Why, fair GRISELDA? Thyself the question begs

Before you goeth off to lay your eggs?

2)

Observe the beauty of maternal bliss -

A mother chicken wanders with her brood,

Drops tidbits with her beak - a chicken kiss - 

And clucks with tender soft solicitude. 

Behold the simple glories of their days - 

They wander through the luscious growths of grass,

New buds to bite, new dirt to dig, new ways

Through  which to peck, prune, preen, pry, prod and pass.

They wander wondering from early morn,

With whirrs and clucks they their CREATOR sing.

When it grows dark, then, mother takes newborn

And shelters them beneath her spreading wing. 

And so, fair DAISY - HENRY fairer still,

I would make this example to mine will.