Charley Nobel, back on 30-Oct-2005, mentioned a poem about a chicken swept off the deck of a ship. This probably isn't the same poem, but it's the closest I could find.

From The Wanderers by Sea and Land, with Other Tales by Peter Parley (pseud.) (London: James Blackwood, 1850), page 21:


THE BALLAD OF BIDDY AT SEA.

Come, all ye boys and girls
And hear a woful strain,
Of one who went to sea
And never came back again.

Alas! if ye have tears,
Prepare to shed them free;
For poor old Biddy's fate
Was sad as sad can be.

An honest hen she was
As any in the yard,
Yet she was torn away,
Albeit she cackled hard.

They did not heed her cries
For pity and for quarter.
They put her in a coop
And bore her o'er the water.

For many days and nights
Poor Bid in prison sighed;
But she got out one day
And o'er the deck she hied.

But, ah! the cruel Cook
Came forth and sought to catch her:
And Biddy knew, forsooth,
That he would fain dispatch her.

She ran, she cackled shrill,
And then, hard pressed, she flew—
Over the side she went
And fell in the ocean blue!

Cold, cold was the briny flood,
But Biddy's heart was brave—
She did the best she could,
And paddled along the wave.

She rose and fell with the tide.
And wistfully looked about—
Alas! no hand was near,
To help poor Biddy out!

Ah! faint and fainter she grew,
For she struggled now with, pain—
And then her head it sank,
Never to rise again!

She sank in the briny deep,
With one faint dying tone:
The ship passed proudly on
And left her there alone!