First

When the sun came, the rooster expanded to meet it,
Stood up, stirred his wings,
Raised his red comb and sentence,
Rendered imperative utterance
Saying, awake. Nothing answered.
He took in a beakful of air; yes, first it was he,
And engendered a number of hard-shelled cacklers,
One for each day in the week.
They grew in their yard, the dust in their feathers,
Who heard them praise him? An egg.

In the night, in the barn, the eggs wakened and cried
Saying, we have been wakened,
And cried, saying father, so named him,
His feathers and beak from the white and the yolk.
Father, who newly can ring out the welkin,
And crow, we will listen to hear.
As toward him we move, and the wings of our feathers grow bright,
And we spring from the dust into flame,
He will call us his chickens.
But that was already their name.