The Fox strolled in, bound down by chain

The rabbits and rats, thrushes and cats

Cried high for blood, for such to fall like rain.

Slammed the gavel of stone, the Stag Magistrate

“Silence your shouts!  Quiet your snouts!

All rise for the hearing, the Fox vs. the State!”

He stood there silent, hated by all

For murder and maim, and evil they claim

Circled round by beasts, within the courthall.

He watched that judge, and his antlers so proud

So strong yet such, perhaps compensating for much?

Not could he remark so, before this jury aloud.

“Convicted you are,” spoke the judge this time

“Of crimes of slaughter, of our sons and daughters”

Surely in this manner, for all beasts do rhyme.

“You have torn apart kin, throats just as well

Consumed lives for bread, defaced our dead!

Without remorse you kill, and ring screams like a bell!”

The forest rose up, outrage so clear

The squirrels and ‘coons, songbirds and loons,

Cried out for justice, masking such fear.

“Hear us, now, villain of all

Us creatures abused, our lives so used

Your crimes, now, we bring to call.”

“Have you a word in protest, devil of a boy?”

That fox without doubt, his face without pout

Spoke “I am a monster, for I destroy”

Victory ruled, that court against he

With claps and cheer, the birds and the deer

Hauled him from judgment, to die by the sea

Across the fair forest, growing bright and green

Past trees and their hills, the winds and their chills

Dragged they the Fox, without hardly a scream

There they placed him, on a cliff on high

Far above the sea, and the rocks below he

Where the bones of his kin, so condemned did lie

Turned he to the crowd, and amongst their eyes of black lead

The vultures and crows, the scavengers he knows

Those among the mob, who his ways had fed

Even they cried there, damning him to death

His good deeds unheeded, his blood only, needed

Waiting and watching, the last of his breath

“Fine, I shall die!” he silenced their joys

To their shock he did scream, “But if I am a fiend,

Then your God is a monster, for it is he that destroys!”

With that he fell far, through the sky to the rocks

Not one did cheer, for still could they hear

The final words spoken before the death of the Fox.