I love the inoffensive frog,
'A little child, a limber elf,'
With health and spirits all agog,
He does the long jump in a bog
Or teaches men to swim and dive.
If he should be cut up alive,
Should I not be cut up myself?

So I intend to be straightway
An Anti-Vivisectionist;
I'll read Miss Cobbe five hours a day
And watch the little frogs at play,
With no desire to see their hearts
At work, or other inward parts,
If other inward parts exist.




TO NUMBER 27X.


Beloved Peeler! friend and guide
And guard of many a midnight reeler,
None worthier, though the world is wide,
Beloved Peeler.

Thou from before the swift four-wheeler