Song For Sidlers

|THE Crab walks sideways, not because his build

`Precludes the possibility of walking straight,

And not (as some have thought) that he is filled

`With strange and lawless theories on gait;

Still less that he is foolishly self-willed

`And prone to show off or exaggerate.=

No serious student of his life and ways

`Will venture to impugn his common sense;

His tact and moderation win high praise

`Even from those whose faculties are dense

And blind to the false issues which they raise

`When they accuse him of malevolence.=

"But, ah!" these shallow hide-bound pedants cry,

`"If to the Crab all virtues you concede,

If his intentions are not evil, why

`This sidelong walk,

`These flanking steps that lead

To no advancement of Humanity,

`No exaltation of the mortal breed?=

"Why not go forward as the Sword-fish goes?

`Or move straight backward, like the jibbing Horse

Why this absurd and pitiable pose

`That takes delight in any devious course?

Why this dislike to 'following the nose'

`Which all the best authorities endorse?"=

Insensate fools. Swims not the Cod in curves?

`Does not the running Roebuck leap and bound

If in his flight the Capercailzie swerves,

`Shall he be mocked by every Basset-hound

Who, having neither feathers, wings, nor nerves,

`Has not the pluck to rise up from the ground?=

Peace, peace, the Crab adopts a side-long walk,

`For reasons still impossible to see.

And if his pride permitted him to talk

`To any one who did not do as he,

His instinct would be, probably, to balk

`The hopes of vulgar curiosity.=

And while the schoolmen argue and discuss,

`And fill the air with "whats," and "whens," and "whys,"

And demonstrate as: thus, and thus, and thus,

`The crab will pulverise their theories,

And put an end to all this foolish fuss

`By walking sideways into Paradise.