A Lost Fragment of Middle English Lyric

By dipping into the considerable funds that have been slowly accumulated in the Dr J Retirement Yacht Fund (and which we intend to spend  as ever we d*mn well please, yaught or naught),  we were enabled to acquire, at considerable expense, a scrap of foolscap, put out for bid at a private auction restricted to qualified collectors, at an undisclosed location in #222B Hirnstrasse, Zurich, Swizterland (second landing, rear).  It was turned over to our WDJ philology department (probably the largest single employer of antiquarians on the European continent) for transcription from the torn and faded original -- which  for unknown reasons  was written on papyrus, in runes -- quite why, is more than unclear, since the manuscript, although undoubtedly old, must considerably postdate the Age of Ogam;  additionally, the apparent allusion to LOLcats would seem to place the poem at a later period.

The authorship -- as so often in this period -- is uncertain.  Certain scholars ascribe it to the West Midlands on textual grounds, possibly from the same pen that gave us Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;  others lean towards a nonce sermonette by some rural pastor, for the edification of the young.

The underlying theme of the poem (estimated  in the undamaged original to have extended some ten thousand lines) is the ancient doctrine of the Great Chain of Being.   It is published here  for the first time.

  Thus ants do propagate ant-kind;

  hamsters, the mighty hamster tribe;

  so kittehs, kitteh-kind progénder,

  and moose, more moose  do make upon the mould.