“Save the Pheasants”

The pheasants are starving in
four foot af snow!
With Northerners blowing, at
twenty below!
Out there in the Soil Bank, wher
snowdrifts are deep.
The pheasants are lying, for-
ever to sleep!

The news came from Washington,
right from the wire-
“Feed-the-poor-pheasants!” like
a prairie on fire!
John found a pheasant, its last
strength was shorn,
And it died in his hand, too late
to eat corn!

The pheasants get such a sad
gleam in their eyes,
When they take the last look, at
the wide open skies!
They can’t dig through snow, a
few weed-seeds forlorn,
And all that they need, a few
handfuls of corn!

The big Soil Bank acres, that’s
where they lay,
The snow is so deep, and they
can’t get away!
You find the big holes they dug,
struggling along,
With nothing to eat, and the
strawpiles are gone.

The spring-days are only a short
ways away–
The brook will be singing, where
soft breezes play:
The grainfields will wave, as the
warm wind goes by:
But not for the bird who looked
last at the sky.

They once were so happy, the
summer-days made
“A Garden of Eden!” in sunshine
and shade,
They died in a snowdrift, for-
saken, forlorn,
When no one came down the
road, bringing them, corn.

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