THE PLACID PUG

AND OTHER RHYMES

By (The Belgian Hare) Lord Alfred Douglas

Author of "Tails with a twist" and "The Duke of Berwick"

Illustrated by P. P.

1906

[Original]

[Original]

CONTENTS

[ THE PLACID PUG ]

[ BALLAD FOR BISHOPS ]

[ SONG FOR VINTNERS ]

[ HYMN FOR HUMBLE PEOPLE ]

[ VERSICLES FOR VEGETARIANS ]

[ HYMN FOR HOWLERS ]

[ DIRGE FOR DEFEATED CANDIDATES ]

[ POEM FOR THE PROUD ]

[ SONG FOR SIDLERS ]

[ FRAGMENT FOR PHILOSOPHERS ]

THE PLACID PUG

THE placid Pug that paces in the Park,

Harnessed in silk and led by leathern lead,

Lives his dull life, and recks not of the Shark

In distant waters. Lapped in sloth and greed,

He fails in strenuous life to make a mark,

The placid Pug that paces in the park.

Round the slow circle of his nights and days

His life revolves in calm monotony.

Not unsusceptible to casual praise,

And mildly moved by the approach of "tea,"

No forked and jagged lightning leaps and plays

Round the slow circle of his nights and days.

He scarcely turns his round protuberant eyes,

To mark the mood of animals or men.

His joy is limited to mild surmise

When a new biscuit swims into his ken.

And when athwart his gaze a Rabbit flies,

He scarcely turns his round protuberant eyes.

And all the while the Shark in Southern seas

[Original]

Pursues the paths of his pulsating quest,

Though the thermometer at fierce degrees

Might well admonish him to take a rest,

The Pug at home snores in ignoble ease.

(And all the while the Shark in Southern seas!)

If Pugs like Sharks were brought up in the sea

And forced to swim long miles to find their food,

Tutored to front the Hake's hostility,

And beard the Lobster in his dangerous mood,

Would not their lives more sane, more useful be,

If Pugs like Sharks were brought up in the sea?

The placid Pug still paces in the park,

Untouched by thoughts of all that might have been.

Undreaming that he might have "steered his bark"

Through many a stirring sight and stormy scene.

But being born a Pug and not a Shark

The placid Pug still paces in the park.

BALLAD FOR BISHOPS

BISHOPS and others who inhabit

The mansions of the blest on earth,

[Original]

Grieved by decline of infant birth,

Have drawn attention to the rabbit.

Not by design these good men work

To raise that beast to heights contested,

But by comparison, suggested,

With those who procreation shirk.

For if a nation's moral status

Be measured by prolific habit,

Between man and the meanest rabbit

There is an evident hiatus.

Each year, by lowest computations,

Six times the rabbit rears her young,

And frequent marriages among

The very closest blood relations

In very tender years ensure

A constant stream of "little strangers,"

Who, quickly grown to gallant rangers,

See that their families endure.

Not theirs to shirk paternal cares,

Moved by considerations sordid,

A child can always "be afforded";

The same applies to Belgian hares.

These noble brutes, pure Duty's pendants,

May live to see their blood vermilion

Coursing through something like a billion

Wholly legitimate descendants.

Knowledge's path is hard and stony,

And some may read who unaware are

That rabbit brown and Belgian hare are

Both members of the genus Coney.

The common hare, who lives in fields

And never goes into a hole,

(In this inferior to the mole)

In all things to the Belgian yields.

He will, immoral brute, decline

To multiply domestic "pledges,"

The family he rears in hedges

Is often limited to nine.

Such shocking want of savoir faire,

(Surely a symptom of insanity)

Might goad a Bishop to profanity

Were it not for the Belgian hare.

SONG FOR VINTNERS

THE Lion laps the limpid lake,

The Pard refuses wine,

The sinuous Lizard and the Snake,

The petulant Porcupine,

Agree in this, their thirst to quench

Only with Nature's natural "drench."

In vain with beer you tempt the Deer,

Or lure the Marmozet;

The early morning Chanticleer,

The painted Parroquet,

Alike, on claret and champagne

Gaze with unfaltering disdain.

No ale or spirit tempts the Ferret,

No juice of grape the Toad.

[Original]

In vain towards the "Harp and Merit"

The patient Ox you goad;

Not his in rapture to extol

The praises of the flowing bowl.

The silent Spider laughs at cider,

The Horse despises port;

The Crocodile (whose mouth is wider

Than any other sort)

Prefers the waters of the Nile

To any of a stronger style.

The Rabbit knows no "private bar,"

The Pelican will wander

Through arid plains of Kandahar,

Nor ever pause to ponder

Whether in that infernal clime

The clocks converge to "closing time."

True "bona-fide traveller"

Urging no sophist plea,

How terrible must seem to her

Man's inebriety;

She who in thirsty moments places

Her simple trust in green oases.

With what calm scorn the Unicorn,

In his remote retreat,

Must contemplate the fervour born

Of old "Château Lafitte."

Conceive the feelings of the Sphinx

Confronted with Columbian drinks!

And oh! if all this solemn truth

Were dinned into its mind

From earliest years, might not our youth

Regenerate mankind,

Aspire to climb the Heights, and dare

To emulate the Belgian hare?

HYMN FOR HUMBLE PEOPLE

THE staunch and strenuous Serpent spends his time

In the safe field of serpentine pursuits,

Rightly considering it a social crime

To parody the ways of other brutes.

Scorning the fraud of alien aspirations,

The snobbishness that apes another class,

Proud, and yet conscious of his limitations,

He bites the dust and grovels in the grass.

The moral food that keeps him down is Force,

Force to confine his fancies to their beds.

[Original]

Makes him the laughing-stock of quadrupeds.

No weak attempt to carol like the Lark,

Fore-doomed to failure and to ridicule,

Troubles his life; he does not wish to bark,

Has no desire to amble like a Mule.

Having no legs he does not try to walk,

But keeps contentedly his native crawl;

Having no voice he does not strive to talk,

Much less to bellow or to caterwaul.

Mark the inevitably reached result:

To balance the advantages he missed,

In three departments he may yet exult

To be the only perfect specialist.

Three arts are his: to writhe, to hiss, to creep.

The Toad's tenacity, the Wombat's wiles,

Or the keen cunning of the crafty Sheep

(And all are artists in their various styles),

Would vainly challenge them. He reigns supreme

In these the fields of his activity,

And reigning so defies the envious Bream,

Who sneers and shrugs and sniggers in the sea.

Type of the wise, who roar but never foam

(If they can help it) at the mouth, except

When night and morn they brush their teeth at home

With pallid powder for that purpose kept.

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?

[Original]

Some will adopt the Chimpanzee

[Original]

And some the Fox as guide,

Others the Bear or Antelope,

Nature allows the fullest scope.

HYMN FOR HOWLERS

WHO that has sailed upon the ocean's face,

Or walked beside the sea along the sand,

Has not felt envy for the piscine race,

Comparing its domain, where noise is banned,

To the infernal racket that takes place

On land?

While up above the billows rage and roar

And make a most unnecessary noise,

And shallow Shrimps, who live too near the shore,

Are harassed by the shouts of girls and boys,

Who find the beach a place convenient for

Their toys,

The happy members of the Fishy clan

Pursue in peace their various pursuits,

All undisturbed by bell of muffin-man,

Or bellow of purveyor of fresh fruits,

Who at each "Pub" his voice republican

Recruits.

The harmless Herring gambols with his young,

And heeds but hears not their impulsive play.

(His heart is with their mother who was flung,

Kippered to feed a clerk's bank-holiday,

Into the salting-tub and passed unsung

Away.)

Now, had this Herring been of human breed,

And lived in London or some other town,

Fate would have made him hear as well as heed

His offspring as it gambolled up and down,