Parts of Speech with Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss

"An elephant's FAITHFUL one hundred per cent!"

Sold to a circus! Then week after week they showed him to people at TEN cents a peek!

It is should be, it should be, it SHOULD be like that!

After bobbing around for TWO weeks like a cork, they landed at last in the town of New York.

"But it's MINE!" screamed the bird, when she heard the egg crack.

AND dawdling along way up high in the sky, who (of all people) should chance to fly by,

"My egg!" shouted Horton. "My egg! WHY, it's hatching!"

"This isn't much fun," the POOR elephant grumbled.

And DOWN with a lurch went Horton the Elephant still on his perch.

It HAD ears and a tail and a trunk just like his!

"Old Horton the Elephant thinks he'S a bird!"

Then Horton THE Elephant smiled.

He started to speak, BUT before he could talk,

Much to Horton's SURPRISE, they dropped their guns, and they stared with wide eyes.

Bump! Horton landed! And THEN the men sold him!

"I'll stay on THIS egg and I won't let it freeze!"

Horton the Elephant saw SOMETHING whizz!

Look! Horton the Elephant's up IN a tree!"

It poured, and IT lightninged! It thundered! It rumbled!

And having SUCH fun, such a wonderful rest, decided she'd never go back to her nest!

"I meant what I said, and I said WHAT I meant. . . ."

And he sat all THAT day, and he kept the egg warm.

They dug up his tree, and they put it INSIDE, with Horton so sad that he practically cried.

"Good gracious!" gasped Mayzie, "I've seen you BEFORE!"

"I wish SHE'd come back 'cause I'm cold and I'm wet."

But the men didn't SHOOT! 

Then carefully, tenderly, GENTLY, he crept up the trunk to the nest where the little egg slept.

They taunted. THEY teased him.

From the egg that he'd sat on so long and so WELL,

And he sat all that night through a TERRIBLE storm.

"I hope that THAT Mayzie bird doesn't forget."

So poor Horton sat there the WHOLE winter through.

And then CAME the springtime with troubles anew!

But Mayzie, BY this time, was far beyond reach, enjoying the sunshine way off in Palm Beach.

So Horton kept sitting THERE, day after day.

Because Horton was FAITHFUL! He sat, and he sat!

"Don't shoot him. We'll catch HIM! That's just what we'll do!"

But poor HORTON'S troubles were far, far from ended.

DID he run? He did not! Horton stayed on that nest!

His friends gathered round, and they shouted with GLEE.

They yelled, "HOW absurd!"

And the first THING he knew, they had built a big wagon.

"Get off of MY nest, and get out of my tree!"

Three hunters came sneaking UP softly behind!

BUT he sat on the egg and continued to say,

And he sat, and he sat, and he sat, AND he sat . . . 

But at that very instant, the egg burst apart! And out of the pieces OF red and white shell,

One day the circus show happened to reach a town way down south, not so far FROM Palm Beach.

But Horton kept sitting and said with A sneeze, 

For while Horton sat there, so faithful, SO kind,