From a Bestiary

                        I.
COCK is a kind of vermin (vermis, worm),
Its common name a most misleading term;
For it croweth not at dawn, as doth the bird,
Though it is sanguine then, so have I heard;
But no, the worm is mute, and though alert,
Cannot sing out: the mouth but serves to squirt.
(The vulgar say it squirteth yellow spittle,
But they are beer-besotted, and know little;
Physiologus says it squirteth thus:
A pearl more precious than Ligurius.)
Like any worm, this one seeketh a hole,
For it is weak, and pain it cannot thole;
While any hole at all will serve for some,
Others will to one hole only come;
But harbor it one or many, in either case,
Each dreams of better holes some other place.
Mostly, the worm is idle, and two spheres,
Dangling beneath it, much resemble tears;
It lieth in a nest of cloth and hair,
Thinking to hide, though all know that it's there.
Such times as these, the creature needeth ruth
(Far from its hole, O Man, as thou from Truth);
And soft as any bear-cub, newly born,
It may be molded, and made hard as horn:
Then seemeth Cock to fill with fiery tongues,
And throb and breathe as if its spheres were lungs,
And swell — Hosanna! — with the angelic choir —
And riseth like a Phoenix from the fire!
Then, says Physiologus, it would seem
It can do anything that it can dream.

And thus, O Man, with thee: though thou be crude,
Though thou be lowly, thou canst rise up, renewed;
Oh burn with a surging flame, and seek thy goal,
Though thy only purpose be to fill a hole.