Original Poetry.

Evening Star, Issue 3047, 23 November 1872, Page 2 (Supplement)

Original Poetry.

THE FIRST PROBLEM: I ; The Soliloquy of a, nationalistic Chicken, i By S. T. Stonk, B.A. ; Most strange i | Most queer,—although moat excellent a ; change! | Shades ot the prison-house, ye disappear ! 1 My fettered thoughts have won a wider : range, I And, like my legs, are free ; I No longer huddled up so pitiably : j Free now to pry and probe, and peep and I peer, And make these mysteries out. " Shall a free-thinking chicken live in dbubt? For now in doubt undoubtedly I am. This problem’s very heavy on my mind, I And I’m not one to either shirk or sham : ; I won’t he blinded, and I won’t be blind, : ’ NoV, rpfine 's^: First, 1 would know how did I get in there ? I hen, where was I of yore? 1 Besides, why didn’t I get out before Dear me! Here are three puzzles (out of plenty more) Enough to give mo pip upon the brain ; But let me think again, i How do I know 1 ever wan inside ? Wow 1 reflect, it is, I do maintain, 1 Less than my reason, and beneath my pride, j To think that I could dwell j In such a paltry miserable cell 1 Aa that old shell, jOf course I couldn’t! How could / have lain, 1 Body and beak, and fe -there, legs and wings, ■ a nd my deep heart’s sublime imaginings, ! In there? ; I meet the motion with profound disdain i : it’s quite incredible ; since I declare ( x nd I’m a chicken that you can’t deceive) 1 What I can't understand I won't believe. Where did I come from, then ? Ah ! where, indeed ? This is a riddle monstrous hard to read, 1 have it! Why, of course, ( All things are moulded by some plastic force, I Out ot some atoms somewhere up in space, I Fortuitously concurrent anyhow : There, now I That’s plain as is the beak upon my face. What’s that I hear ? My mother cackling at me ! Just her way, So prejudiced and ignorant, / say ! So far behind the wisdom of the day. What’s old I can’t revere. Hark at her; Vor’re a dlly chick, my dear j ’* That’s quite as plain, alack ! As is the piece of shell upon your back !” How bigoted ! upon my back, indeed ! I don’t believe it’s there, For I can’t see it; and Ido declare, For all her fond deceivin’, What I can't sec, I never will believe In !