A farmer had a cockerel,

     The pride of any farm.
He strutted round the farmyard

     And caused nobody harm.

The lady hens all loved him

     And gazed at him with pride,
But the day that Cocky disappeared,

     Everybody cried.

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They searched the barnyard buildings;

     They hunted high and low.
They missed his lovely plumage

     And his joyous morning crow.

They couldn’t find poor Cocky

     No matter how they tried.
'He can’t have left our farm!' they said,

     And everybody sighed.

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The winter winds were blowing

     And the rain beat down as well.
Folk decorated households and . . . oh!  

     From the kitchen came a smell.

Some news began to circulate.  

     It surely wasn’t true:
'Cocky is their Christmas lunch!  

     Whatever can we do?’

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The hens then fumed with anger.  

     The ducks began to quack.
‘However can we trust them

       If Cocky can’t come back?’

The Christmas meal was ready;

     The carving knife came out.
The hens looked through the window 

     And then began to doubt.

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'This surely isn’t Cocky!

     This bird was twice his size.’
'He never had a large breast,

     And just look at those thighs!'

Then suddenly a cockerel crowed -

      A well-known sound to all.
It came from near the stable block,

     Beside the horse’s stall.

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'It’s Cocky!' clucked an old brown hen.

     'Let’s run and say hello.'
'But where's he been?' said white duck.  

     'I think we ought to know!'

‘So, tell us!' they asked Cocky,

     But the truth is sometimes hard:
He'd been visiting the lady hens

     In next-door’s farmer’s yard.

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Copyright on both poem

and artwork

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