The Wren, the Wren, King of all Birds.
The Crested Wren, our smallest bird,
My Granddad told me, and it might seem absurd,
That it became the King of All Birds,
And this is how. These are his words.
Soon after God created them,
A meeting was called by a scrawny old hen,
To elect as King, one of their kind,
No rules were set, or yet defined.
Some of the fowl of smaller wing,
Knew that they would not be king,
When a decision by the majority,
That flight was what the test would be.
‘’Distance?” asked the Albatross,
“No, no, no” cried the Owl, the boss,
“Height - then we will have to fly,
High, high, high, into the sky”.
The hen jumped off a fallen tree,
It’ll never do, it was plain to see,
That her leap of about four feet,
Would not the record ever beat.
The goose took up the challenge, bold,
Tried to take off, but rolled and rolled,
Until she splashed down in the lake,
The old hen cackled “For Heaven’s sake”.
The blackbird and the mistle thrush,
Flew off and with a hurried rush,
They reached quite high, but would not win,
For the Eagle watched with a sly grin.
When most had tried their level best,
To get much higher than the rest,
The swallow on his screaming wing,
Was first so far: he might be King.
It was then that the Eagle made his bid,
But did not notice where the shrewd Wren hid,
And as he soared among the clouds,
Was watched from below by the feathered crowds.
The Eagle reached a mighty height,
Then screamed out loud with wild delight,
“I am the King, it’s plain to see,
No one on earth will outdo me”.
Then from his feathers, flew the Wren,
And climbed twelve feet and only then,
“You are beaten Eagle” he was heard to sing,
Came back to Earth, and was crowned King.
The moral of this story then:
The Great Bald Eagle, or scrawny old Hen,
Is no better than the Wren or Tit,
It’s not your size - it’s what you do with it.
Mike…
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