A Moral Alphabet (excerpt)
Hilaire Belloc 1870 (La Celle-Saint-Cloud) – 1953
D: The Dreadful Dinotherium he
Will have to do his best for D.
The early world observed with awe
His back, indented like a saw.
His look was gay, his voice was strong;
His tail was neither short nor long;
His trunk, or elongated nose,
Was not so large as some suppose;
His teeth, as all the world allows,
Were graminivorous, like a cow's.
He therefore should have wished to pass
Long peaceful nights upon the Grass,
But being mad the brute preferred
To roost in branches, like a bird.1
A creature heavier than a whale,
You see at once, could hardly fail
To suffer badly when he slid
And tumbled (as he always did).
His fossil, therefore, comes to light
All broken up: and serve him right.
MORAL
If you were born to walk the ground,
Remain there; do not fool around.
E stands for Egg.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 80 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AAXXBBCCDDEEFFGGHHII XJJ X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 788 |
Words | 150 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 3, 1 |
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