The Cockatrice

A poem by Oliver Herford

If you will listen to advice
You will avoid the Cockatrice--
A caution I need hardly say
Wholly superfluous to-day.
Yet had you lived when they were rife
Such warning might have saved your life.
To meet the Cockatrice's eye
Means certain death--and that is why
When I its features here portray
I make it look the other way.
O Cockatrice! were you so mean
What must the Henatrice have been!