The Patriotic Canadian Hen

A hen observed unto her mate,
Who was strutting round in state,
As roosters do who think they’re great,
About egg tariff do not fret.

Cheap eggs I’ll give the Yankee folk,
For I will lay big double yolk,
And very large shell I will fill,
And peck a flaw in McKinley Bill.

I heard the farmer’s wife one day,
These words unto her husband say,
There’s nothing on the farm doth pay
So well as these our hens do lay.

My love for you, my rooster, grows,
There’s none can match your morning crow,
You crow the hour Chronometer,
You weather crow Barometer.

But the poor duck it hath sad lack,
All it can do it is to quack;
Of course the poor thing must regret,
It don’t belong into our set.

I pity the web-footed things,
Who in water love to flap their wings;
The reason is of course because
They’re not genteel like us with claws.

It doth not lay one half the time,
We do, but wallows in the slime,
On land it is but a squatter,
Broad bills, more at home on water.