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It was a grand upstanding bantam cock, |
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So brisk and stiff and spry, |
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With springy step and jaunty plume |
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And a purposeful look in his eye, |
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In his little black blinking eye, he had. |
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I took him to the coop and introduced him |
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To my seventeen wide-eyed hens. |
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He tupped and he tupped as a hero tups |
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And he bowed from the waist to them all, and then |
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He upped and he tupped 'em all again, he did. |
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And then upon the peace of me ducks and me geese |
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He rudely did intrude. |
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With glazed eyes and open mouths |
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They bore it all with fortitude |
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And a little bit of gratitude, they did. |
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He jumped my giggling guinea fowl |
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And forced his attentions upon |
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My twenty hysterical turkeys and |
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A visiting migrant swan. |
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But the bantam thundered on, he did. |
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He ravished my fan-tailed pigeons and |
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Me lily-white columbines, |
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And while I was locking up the budgerigar |
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He jumped my parrot from behind; |
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She was sitting on me shoulder at the time. |
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And all of a sudden with a gasp and a gulp |
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He clapped his hands to his head, |
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Fell flat on his back with his toes in the air. |
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My bantam cock lay dead |
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And the vultures circled overhead, they did. |
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What a champion brute; what a noble cock; |
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What a way to live and to die. |
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I was diggin' him a grave to save his bones |
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From the hungry buzzards in the sky |
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When the bantam opened up a sly little eye. |
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He gave me a grin and a terrible wink, |
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The way that rapists do. |
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He said, 'You see them big daft buggers up there? |
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They'll be down in a minute or two; |
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They'll be down in a minute or two.' |
