Henpecked

A half a hundred hens one day,

     At least the story goes,

Talked o’er their rights and wrongs and then

     In hot rebellion rose.

The rooster had been lord of all

     A cruel tyrant he;

They sought to take him down a peg,

     Or two, maybe three.

One squawk, then at him did they go

     And scratched and picked like mad;

They dragged him here and dragged him there,

     And used him very bad.

The wrath of months fell on his head,

     The job was very clean;

He looked as though he’d filtered through

     A harvesting machine.

And since that day the world has come

     To this conclusion terse:

A henpecked man looks bad enough,

     A henpecked rooster worse.

Nov. 23, ‘05