A Dressing: The Rooster

 

 

O creature most obnoxious, foul,

A curse on He who gave you vowel,

To grate my nerves that I’m an owl

   Who cannot sleep.

“On he who keeps you—” (my avowal)

   “I’ll vengeance heap!”

 

Most impudent, rebellious cock,

Think you I need your zealous squawk,

To rouse me like some hellish clock

   And break my ease?

(Ofttimes I think to give a flock

   Mine enemies!)

 

Around his dungyard, fie! you peck,

And horny, leap upon her neck,

To sate your virile self most wreck

   Your careworn mate.

Would ever mute—and sterile—chick

   Be just your fate!

 

Your comb you strut in fair fowl weather,

To think you’ve such a pretty feather

—Go preen in Hell, in fiery tether,

   Arch and yell!

And haunt His cockamamie heather,

   There to dwell.

 

But mind your cheek clears not the fence,

That keeps me here, and keeps you hence.

You’ll find a spare benevolence

   To gobble here.

Your Master, for your accidents,

   Shed woeful tear.

 

Fie! thirteen times now have you loosed;

One rhyme be beggar’s bread to boost

Your vanity atop the roost

   Of neighborhood.

And after, cocksure, smartly spruced

   Your feathers good.

 

For this you are a sheltered pet;

Give dung to fools for all you’ve et

—And never a thought to pay the debt

   For bell and board.

And look a hen now to beget

   To swell your horde.

 

You, Chanticleer, must surely laugh,

For be this not your cunning gaff:

That Man should toil on your behalf

   —And reap such woe?

To buy you wheat—and eat your chaff!?

   You can but crow.