154 
MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
And, as the grain and flint in conflict clash, 
To feel—ay, there’s the rub-a-dub ! 
To feel that inward penetrating joy— 
That glorious, gritty grinding in the gizzard, 
The precedent and happy prelude to digestion! 
Then, when the circling process of the sun 
Brings round the fulness of the fecund year, 
Daily to drop upon the golden straw 
The precious nugget—exquisite ellipse. 
Russet, or amber-brown, or ivory-white, 
Grand consummation, piously desired 
By all those tribes, wearing or frocks or feathers, 
That move on understandings twain. 
Or were it best, perchance, to thrust the beak 
Into a reeking mass of viscid dough, 
Messy conglomerate of myriad meals, 
Fish, flesh, blood, bones, beans, biscuit, clover, 
With pollard mixed, or sharps, or bran, or middlings ? 
Vile regimen! Come rather instant death 
By one fell wrench of the cervical vertebre 
Than a millennium of ignoble slops, 
Sans eggs, sans chicks, sans quills, sans everything ! 
[Exit DUENNA in the direction of the automatic feeder. 
SOMERSET, 
