Classic Poem

It's a jolly sort of season, is the spring — is the spring,
And there isn't any reason for not feeling like a king.
The sun has got flirtatious and he kisses Mistress Maine,
And she pouts her lips, a-saying, " Mister, can't you come again? "
The hens are all a-laying, the potatoes sprouting well,
And fodder spent so nicely that I'll have some hay to sell.
But when I get to feeling just as well as I can feel,
All to once it comes across me that I've got them calves to veal.

Oh! I can't go in the stanchion, look them mothers in the eye,
For I'm meditatin' murder; planning how their calves must die.
Every time them little shavers grab a teat, it wrings my heart,
— Hate to see 'em all so happy, for them cows and calves must part.
That's the reason I'm so mournful; that's the reason in the spring
I go feeling just like Nero or some other wicked thing,
For I have to slash and slaughter; have to set an iron heel
On the feelings of them mothers; I have got them calves to veal.

Spring is happy for the poet and the lover and the girl,
But the farmer has to do things that will make his harslet curl.
And the thing that hits me hardest is to stand the lonesome moos
Of that stanchion full of critters when they find they're going to lose
Little Spark-face, Little Brindle — when the time has come to part,
And the calves go off a-blatting in a butcher's rattling cart.
Though the cash the butcher pays me sort of smooths things up and salves
All the really rawest feeling when I sell them little calves,
Still I'm mournful in the springtime; knocks me off my even keel,
Seeing suffering around me when I have them calves to veal.