But the Cock feigned absence of mind and ignored him and answered him naught, but stood with rounded eyes and fixed up the far when the Fox resumed, “O my brother, the King of the Beasts which be the Lion and the King of the Birds which be the Eagle have alighted from a journey upon the meads where grass is a-growing and the marge where waters are a-flowing and blossoms are a-blowing and browsing gazelles are a-to-ing and a-fro-ing; and the twain have gathered together all manner of ferals, lions and hyenas, leopards and lynxes, wild cattle and antelopes and jackals and even hares, brief, all the wild beasts of the world; and they have also collected every kind of bird, eagle and vulture, crow and raven, wild pigeon and turtle-dove, poultry and fowls and Katas and quails and other small deer, and these two liege lords have bidden the herald proclaim, throughout the tracts of the upland wold and the wild lowland, safety and security and confraternity and peace with honour and sympathy and familiar friendship and affection and love amongst the wild beasts and cattle and birds; also that enmity be done away with and wrongs be forbidden nor might one transgress against the other; nay, if any chance to injure his fellow this offence might be for his scourging a reason, and for his death by tearing to pieces a justification.

Oh?

The cadence reminds me of Kipling. Especially his "Just So" stories.

Paid by the word, not by the sentence.