Placid Pug, and Other Rhymes — Versicles for Vegetarians

VERSICLES FOR VEGETARIANS

|SINCE Dr. Watts in frenzy fine `Extolled the "busy Bee," The patience of the Porcupine, `The Newt's fidelity, The calm contentment of the Pike, Have stirred our hearts and brain alike.

= Lives there a man so lost, so low, `That he has never found Some lesson in the Buffalo, `Some precept in the Hound?

Few who have won Victoria's cross Owe _nothing_ to the Albatross.

= These pleasant thoughts must turn our minds, `In meditation quiet, Towards the moral law that binds `The principles of diet.

Since 'tis a maxim none disputes, That we should imitate the brutes.

= As has been shown in former verse, `The animal creation Does not in its own nature nurse `Inebriate inclination;

Nor is it formed by Heaven to pant For alcoholic stimulant.

= That being so, our path is plain, `We must eschew all drinks;

If we are anxious to attain `To the celestial brinks, The meanest Hippopotamus Will make our duty clear to us.

= But in the search for Natural guides `To moral food-restrictions, We are assaulted on all sides `By patent contradictions.

Thus, while the Lion lives on meat, The Pheasant is content with wheat.

= Who then, when beasts do not agree, `Shall venture to decide?

[Illustration: 033] Some will adopt the Chimpanzee [Illustration: 034] `And some the Fox as guide, Others the Bear or Antelope, Nature allows the fullest scope.

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