A Portrait

I am a kind of farthing dip, Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place In solemn, sanctimonious state, And have the air of saying grace While I defile the dinner-plate.

I am "the smiler with the knife," The battener upon garbage, I-- Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life Were it not better far to die?

Yet still, about the human pale, I love to scamper, love to race, To swing by my irreverent tail All over the most holy place;

And when at length, some golden day, The unfailing sportsman, aiming at, Shall bag, me--all the world shall say: Thank God, and there's an end of that!