Bird-songs

A finch piped up in an apple tree
that finch's cheeky cheep-a-cheep-cheep!
A tree frog climbed up to him laboriously,
Up to a green-leafed roof quite steep,
And swelled himself to croak: "It's me,
Neighborly ready to croak-a-peep-peep!"

And as the bird was fresh, freshly sweet,
So sweet to the spring did it tweet-a-tweet-tweet,
The frog joined in with a raucous bleat,
A moaning drone, quite indiscrete.

The finch burst forth: "Hurrah! Hurray!
I'll think that I shall fly away!"
And leapt into the sky that day.

"What!" cried the frog, "Well so shall I!"
And believing such foolish lie,
Fell splat to the ground where it did die.
Flat as a pancake flat, doornail dead,
It had given its final croak instead.

If someone -- not a bird -- climbs high
And thinks that he might someday fly
Without the wings of the birdy bird,
Why then, such thinking is simply absurd.

The wise old owl holds still his tongue
When two sides' angry words are flung.
A stork and raven once did dispute --
"Did the Lord God (who was truly quite astute)
Make first the egg or bird? Refute!"
The stork screeched, "T'was the fowl!
That is truth, most certainly allowed!"
The raven croaked, "The egg was first!
Who can't see that is brain-dead! Cursed!"

They both went on quite loud and long,
As two nosey frogs joined the duo's song.
The first invoked, "The stork's so bright!"
The second croaked, "The raven's right!"

"What?" the argumentative birds did say.
"Such frogs dare to join in our bird-brain fray?"
The argument ceased right then and there,
As the birds snapped up the usurping pair
And lunched on frog as their lunchtime fare.

"Yup," punned the wise old owl,
"Staying silent, the frogs would not have run afoul."

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.