The Soliloquy of a Rationalistic Chicken
Like David the shepherd, Samuel Stone (1839-1900) was a contender. David put down Saul’s sword, choosing to fight Goliath with the weapon he knew best. Rather than sling and stone, Stone used rhyme and meter to wage war against ignorance and unbelief. He lived in an age when the natural was doing its best to cast off the perceived shackles of the supernatural. The poem featured today will never make the top 100, but Stone deserves recognition for originality, effort, and a willingness to swing his ink-pen sword against the rising spirit of rationalism.
The Soliloquy of a Rationalistic Chicken
ON THE PICTURE OF A NEWLY HATCHED CHICKEN CONTEMPLATING THE FRAGMENTS OF ITS NATIVE SHELL
Most strange!
Most queer, –although most excellent a change!
Shades of the prison-house, ye disappear!
My fettered thoughts have won a wider range,
And, like my legs, are free;
No longer huddled up so pitiably:
Free now to pry and probe, and peep and peer,
And make these mysteries out.
Shall a free-thinking chicken live in doubt?
For now in doubt undoubtedly I am:
This problem's very heavy on my mind,
And I'm not one to either shirk or sham:
I won't be blinded, and I won't be blind!
Now, let me see;
First, I would know how did I get in there?
Then, where was I of yore?
Besides, why didn't I get out before?
Bless me!
Here are three puzzles (out of plenty more)
Enough to give me pip upon the brain!
But let me think again.
How do I know I ever was inside?
Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain,
Less than my reason, and beneath my pride
To think that I could dwell
In such a paltry miserable cell
As that old shell.
Of course I couldn't! How could I have lain,
Body and beak and feathers, legs and wings,
And my deep heart's sublime imaginings,
In there?
I meet the notion with profound disdain;
It's quite incredible; since I declare
(And I'm a chicken that you can't deceive)
What I can't understand I won't believe.
Where did I come from, then? Ah! where, indeed?
This is a riddle monstrous hard to read.
I have it! Why, of course,
All things are molded by some plastic force
Out of some atoms somewhere up in space,
Fortuitously concurrent anyhow: –
There, now!
That's plain as is the beak upon my face.
What's that I hear?
My mother cackling at me! Just her way,
So prejudiced and ignorant I say;
So far behind the wisdom of the day!
What's old I can't revere.
Hark at her. “You're a little fool, my dear,
That's quite as plain, alack!
As is the piece of shell upon your back!”
How bigoted! upon my back indeed!
I don't believe it's there:
For I can't see it; and I do declare,
For all her fond deceivin',
What I can't see I never will believe in!
Is anything more preposterous than pontificating poultry? God thinks so. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7). Do not cave to the spirit of the age.
What weapons for truth lie beside you untouched? Pick up your palette, pen, or Pinterest; put them to use and be patient in the fight. God’s truth abideth still.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. (Hebrews 11:1-3, NKJV)
