Life is real, life is earnest, <br />And the shell is not its pen – <br />“Egg thou art, and egg remainest” <br />Was not spoken of the hen. <br /> <br />Art is long and Time is fleeting, <br />Be our bills then sharpened well, <br />And not like muffled drums be beating <br />On the inside of the shell. <br /> <br />In the world’s broad field of battle, <br />In the great barnyard of life, <br />Be not like those lazy cattle! <br />Be a rooster in the strife! <br /> <br />Lives of roosters all remind us, <br />We can make our lives sublime, <br />And when roasted, leave behind us, <br />Hen tracks on the sands of time. <br /> <br />Hen tracks that perhaps another <br />Chicken drooping in the rain, <br />Some forlorn and henpecked brother, <br />When he sees, shall crow again.<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-parody-on-a-psalm-of-life/
