LIFE IS REAL, life is earnest, And the shell is not its pen -- "Egg thou art, and egg remainest" Was not spoken of the hen. Art is long and Time is fleeting, Be our bills then sharpened well, And not like muffled drums be beating On the inside of the shell. In the world's broad field of battle, In the great barnyard of life, Be not like those lazy cattle! Be a rooster in the strife! Lives of roosters all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And when roasted, leave behind us, Hen tracks on the sands of time. Hen tracks that perhaps another Chicken drooping in the rain, Some forlorn and henpecked brother, When he sees, shall crow again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FLOATING MORMON by KAREN SWENSON THE VANTAGE POINT by ROBERT FROST A POET'S EPITAPH by EBENEZER ELLIOTT IF WE MUST DIE by CLAUDE MCKAY A LITTLE PARABLE by ANNE REEVE ALDRICH MY SHIP by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN |