(The following verses express no grievance of my own. I could
not ask for more considerate neighbors. But all gardeners are
not so fortunate, and it is for their sake and at the
suggestions of one of them that these lines were written.)
Sometimes I say "The Dickens!
There are my neighbor's chickens!"
My neighbor I like well
But--let me grievance tell--
I do not like his chickens;--
Save when he bids me to a roast
And plays the part of kindly host.
My garden is most dear to me
From carrot bed to apple tree,
And so my patience sickens
When I behold the chickens
In it and scratching merrily.
Dark gloom grows darker, thickens,
In looking at those chickens.
A certain scientific man
Once called the hen "A feeble bird."
It is, I'm sure, on no such plan
My neighbor's hens are built; the word
"Feeble" to them does not apply.
I wish Professor would stand by
And see those hens make mulching fly.
Or let him watch them as they eat
My cauliflower choice and sweet,
Or gorge themselves on berries fine;
The way they always do with mine.
They run on their destructive feet
From stalk to stalk, from vine to vine,
Or scratch as if they dug a mine.
And so, my neighbor, won't you please,
My cares dispel, my troubles ease,
By keeping all your hens at home?
Soon, soon the very earth will freeze
And then the fowls at large may roam.
So I'll not need the pen of Dickens
To tell my horror of your chickens!