Key: A
Introduction:
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It was a grand upstanding bantam cock,
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So brisk and stiff and spry,
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With springy step and jaunty plume
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And a purposeful look in his eye,
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In his little black blinking eye, he had.
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I took him to the coop and introduced him
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To my seventeen wide-eyed hens.
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He tupped and he tupped as a hero tups
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And he bowed from the waist to them all, and then
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He upped and he tupped 'em all again, he did.
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And then upon the peace of me ducks and me geese
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He rudely did intrude.
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With glazed emyes and open mouths
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They bore it all with fortitude
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And a little bit of gratitude, they did.
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He jumped my giggling guinea fowl
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And forced his attentions upon
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My twenty hysterical turkeys and
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A visiting migrant swan.
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But the bantam thundered on, he did.
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He ravished my fan-tailed pigeons and
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Me lily-white columbines,
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And while I was locking up the budgerigar
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He jumped my parrot from behind
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She was sitting on me shoulder at the time.
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And all of a sudden with a gasp and a gulp
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He clapped his hands to his head,
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Fell flat on his back with his toes in the air.
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My bantam cock lay dead
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And the vultures circled overhead, they did.
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What a champion brute what a noble cock
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What a way to live and to die.
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I was diggin' him a grave to save his bones
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From the hungry buzzards in the sky
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When the bantam opened up a sly little eye.
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He gave me a grin and a terrible wink
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The way that roosters do.
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He said, 'You see them big daft buggers up there?
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They'll be down in a minute or two
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They'll be down in a minute or two.'