And yet perchance your forest apes would shrink
From Smoke-room chat of apes who _never_ think,
But cackle imitatively all round,
Till their speech hath an automatic sound.
Put the dread name of GL-DST-NE in the slot
SMELFUNGUS calls his mouth, and rabid rot
Will gurgle forth in a swift sewer-like gush
Of coarse abuse would make a bargee blush.
SMELFUNGUS is a soldier, and a swell,
But--the Gaboon can scarce surpass Pall-Mall
In vicious, gibbering vulgarity
Of coarse vituperation. Decency,
Courtesy, common-sense, all cast aside!
Pheugh! GARNER, in his cage, would open wide
His listening ears, did Jacko of the forest
So "slate" a foeman when his head was sorest.
Strange that to rave and rant, like scullion storm,
Like low virago scold, should seem "good form"
To our Society Simians, when one name
Makes vulgar spite oblivious of its shame!
"Voluntary and deliberate," their speech,
"Articulate too"--those Apes! Then could they teach
Their--say _descendants_,--much. Does Club or cage
Hear most of rabid and unreasoned rage?
"Apes' manner of delivery shows" (they say)
"They're conscious of the meaning they'd convey!"
Then pardon, GARNER! Apes, though found in clans.
Are _not_, of course, political partisans.
Tired of the Club-room's incoherent rage,
One pines for the Gaboon, and GARNER's cage.