Everywhere are pastoral nouns in “s”,
Swishing their tails, impassible and rural;
Musk oxen browse with sibilant excess,
While cattle is singular as a plural.
Children are ancient, oxen — a chimera;
Once they lived among their kith and kin,
Multiple creatures ending all with “en”,
Survivors now of a linguistic era.
More than one child who was playing
Is suddenly summoned and admonished,
For more than one ox he watched is straying;
Implausible endings fail to astonish.
Exceptions were once the common stock;
Each relic was an ordinary word;
Penned-in thoughts and fluttering talk,
Ruminants and flocks,
Filled the yard, their quaintness still unheard.