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?

Some will adopt the Chimpanzee

`And some the Fox as guide,

Others the Bear or Antelope,

Nature allows the fullest scope.=