| WHY are you running so fast hither and thither | |
| Chasing midges or butterflies? | |
| Some of you are standing solemnly scratching for grubs; | |
| Some of you are waiting for corn to be scattered. | |
| This is life, is it? | 5 |
| Cock-a-doodle-do! Very well, Thomas Rhodes, | |
| You are cock of the walk no doubt. | |
| But here comes Elliott Hawkins, | |
| Gluck, Gluck, Gluck, attracting political followers. | |
| Quah! quah! quah! why so poetical, Minerva, | 10 |
| This gray morning? | |
| Kittie—quah—quah! for shame, Lucius Atherton, | |
| The raucous squawk you evoked from the throat | |
| Of Aner Clute will be taken up later | |
| By Mrs. Benjamin Pantier as a cry | 15 |
| Of votes for women: Ka dook—dook! | |
| What inspiration has come to you, Margaret Fuller Slack? | |
| And why does your gooseberry eye | |
| Flit so liquidly, Tennessee Claflin Shope? | |
| Are you trying to fathom the esotericism of an egg? | 20 |
| Your voice is very metallic this morning, Hortense Robbins— | |
| Almost like a guinea hen’s! | |
| Quah! That was a guttural sigh, Isaiah Beethoven; | |
| Did you see the shadow of the hawk, | |
| Or did you step upon the drumsticks | 25 |
| Which the cook threw out this morning? | |
| Be chivalric, heroic, or aspiring, | |
| Metaphysical, religious, or rebellious, | |
| You shall never get out of the barnyard | |
| Except by way of over the fence | 30 |
| Mixed with potato peelings and such into the trough! | |
