POETRY.
TO RACQUET: A YOUNG FOX-TERRIER. DEAR Racquet, when you cross your paws And prick those dainty ears of satin, How often must I grieve because The art is lost of pure dog-Latin !
Once beasts with men held kindly speech.
The woodman and the oak would parley, The farmer seasonably preach To nodding ears of wheat and barley.
Ah me ! That grammar is forgot And narrower our modern lore is; No tongues have now the polyglot Save Leiterae Humaniores.
So access to your little brain I only get by winding channels; What mysteries to you were plain Had I the language of the kennels !
But sudden knowledge, long denied, Might lead you into affectation, Make you unbearable from pride And discontented with your station.
Ashamed that you were but a dog, Inflated with ir.nne ambition, You might, like he, unhappy frog, Become a byword of derision.
Nay ! pardon my unseemly pen ; What right is mine thus to insult your Discreet intelligence ? We men Have no monopoly of culture.
For after all your way you find About this world with snout and muzzle ; Is life to our superior mind Less of a problem or a puzzle?
Ah ! surely to the Powers Unseen, With juster view us both discerning, How small the difference between Our relative degrees of learning!
If this be heresy, at least One fact I know requires no proving ; Alike in man and bird and beast The highest gift is that of loving.
Courage and Loyalty and Trust Are virtues too that brook no scorning; Wherever found they always must Be honoured, man or dog adorning.
Then, Racquet, we will not despair Of opening up communications ; Though words for us are empty air, Yet there are other revelations. R. H. Lem.
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