His mother said, "Dear Henry, son,
"Here're fresh baked pretzels, quite well done."

Henry thought without thinking much,
To bait with pretzel some geese, to clutch.

A gosling swam quite near to shore,
And Henry grabbed it, furthermore.

It struggled with all its goose-like might.
The elders saw its dreadful plight.

The whole gaggle of geese then did attack,
Assaulting Henry, front and back.

Henry fell over from the utter shock,
And was seized upon by all the flock.

With Henry they sprang into the sky,
And flew quite fast and flew quite high.

They came upon the mother's house,
Carrying that mother's awful little louse.

Down the chimney they dropped the lad,
And Henry fell and was bruised quite bad.

Down the chimney with a clatter and bang,
Into the kettle which whistled and sang.

With a ladle so quickly had the mother hooked
Silly, stupid Henry before he was cooked.

In front of the oven he had to stay
To dry out, on that goose-flown day.

The geese, one notes, had a pretzel to eat,
Which tasted all the more deliciously sweet.