The Foolish Woodpecker

A woodpecker once,
A sort of a dunce,
And who as a warbler not much of a siren,
Passed by many trees
Where he might have with ease
Bored out a nice hole to his hunger appease,
*For a lofty church steeple made out of
sheet iron.

He whetted his bill,
And then with good-will
And a thrumpty-thrum-thrum he started
to bore,
Nor let up until
The end of his bill
Was worn off so much that it gave him a
chill
And the back of his bobber began to get
sore.

A black bird and wren,
A rooster and hen,
A crow and a sparrow were watching him
drill,
And squinted one eye
At his birdship so high,
So far from the earth that he looked like a
fly
And wondered how long he could work
with good-will.

When his bobber gave out
He gave a faint shout
To the crowd that was watching him down
on the ground,
And said, Come up here
Where the air is so clear
And lend me a hand, for a worm is so near
Whenever I peck I can hear his faint sound.

Then the blackbird and wren
And the sparrow and hen
And the crow that were watching him,
called from below
And said, "Silly Goose,
Your work's of no use,
You might drill in that iron until your
head's loose.
You have no more sense than some men
that we know."

* The steeple referred to is the one on the M. P. Church
at Spring Hill, Kansas.

^__Ed Blair.

Sunflower Siftings
Ed Blair
(Boston: The Gorham Press. 1914)
Pages 100-101