Hilaire Belloc

As a friend to the children commend me the Yak. You will find it exactly the thing: It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back, Or lead it about with a string. The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet (A desolate region of snow) Has for centuries made it a nursery pet, And surely the Tartar should know! Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got, And if he is awfully rich He will buy you the creature—or else he will not. (I cannot be positive which.)

The Whale that wanders round the Pole Is not a table fish. You cannot bake or boil him whole, Nor serve him in a dish; But you may cut his blubber up And melt it down for oil, And so replace the colza bean (A product of the soil). These facts should all be noted down And ruminated on, By every boy in Oxford town Who wants to be a Don.

Some years ago you heard me sing My doubts on Alexander Byng. His sister Sarah now inspires My jaded Muse, my failing fires. Of Sarah Byng the tale is told How when the child was twelve years old She could not read or write a line. Her sister Jane, though barely nine, Could spout the Catechism through And parts of Matthew Arnold too, While little Bill who came between Was quite unnaturally keen On 'Athalie', by Jean Racine. But not so Sarah! Not so Sal! She was a most uncultured girl Who didn't care a pinch of snuff For any literary stuff And gave the classics all a miss. Observe the consequence of this! As she was walking home one day, Upon the fields across her way A gate, securely padlocked, stood, And by its side a piece of wood On which was painted plain and full, BEWARE THE VERY FURIOUS BULL Alas! The young illiterate Went blindly forward to her fate, And ignorantly climbed the gate! Now happily the Bull that day Was rather in the mood for play Than goring people through and through As Bulls so very often do; He tossed her lightly with his horns Into a prickly hedge of thorns, And stood by laughing while she strode And pushed and struggled to the road. The lesson was not lost upon The child, who since has always gone A long way round to keep away From signs, whatever they may say, And leaves a padlocked gate alone. Moreover she has wisely grown Confirmed in her instinctive guess That literature breeds distress.

There is a wall of which the stones Are lies and bribes and dead men's bones. And wrongfully this evil wall Denies what all men made for all, And shamelessly this wall surrounds Our homesteads and our native grounds. But I will gather and I will ride, And I will summon a countryside, And many a man shall hear my halloa Who never had thought the horn to follow; And many a man shall ride with me Who never had thought on earth to see High Justice in her armoury. When we find them where they stand, A mile of men on either hand, I mean to charge from right away And force the flanks of their array, And press them inward from the plains, And drive them clamouring down the lanes, And gallop and harry and have them down, And carry the gates and hold the town. Then shall I rest me from my ride With my great anger satisfied. Only, before I eat and drink, When I have killed them all, I think That I will batter their carven names, And slit the pictures in their frames, And burn for scent their cedar door, And melt the gold their women wore, And hack their horses at the knees, And hew to death their timber trees, And plough their gardens deep and through— And all these things I mean to do For fear perhaps my little son Should break his hands, as I have done.

Child! do not throw this book about! Refrain from the unholy pleasure Of cutting all the pictures out! Preserve it as your chiefest treasure. Child, have you never heard it said That you are heir to all the ages? Why, then, your hands were never made To tear these beautiful thick pages! Your little hands were made to take The better things and leave the worse ones: They also may be used to shake The Massive Paws of Elder Persons. And when your prayers complete the day, Darling, your little tiny hands Were also made, I think, to pray For men that lose their fairylands.

D: The Dreadful Dinotherium he Will have to do his best for D. The early world observed with awe His back, indented like a saw. His look was gay, his voice was strong; His tail was neither short nor long; His trunk, or elongated nose, Was not so large as some suppose; His teeth, as all the world allows, Were graminivorous, like a cow's. He therefore should have wished to pass Long peaceful nights upon the Grass, But being mad the brute preferred To roost in branches, like a bird. 1 A creature heavier than a whale, You see at once, could hardly fail To suffer badly when he slid And tumbled (as he always did). His fossil, therefore, comes to light All broken up: and serve him right. MORAL If you were born to walk the ground, Remain there; do not fool around. E stands for Egg. MORAL The Moral of this verse Is applicable to the Young. Be terse. K for the Klondyke, a Country of Gold, Where the winters are often excessively cold; Where the lawn every morning is covered with rime, And skating continues for years at a time. Do you think that a Climate can conquer the grit Of the Sons of the West? Not a bit! Not a bit! When the weather looks nippy, the bold Pioneers Put on two pairs of Stockings and cover their ears, And roam through the drear Hyperborean dales With a vast apparatus of Buckets and Pails; Or wander through wild Hyperborean glades With Hoes, Hammers, Pickaxes, Mattocks and Spades. There are some who give rise to exuberant mirth By turning up nothing but bushels of earth, While those who have little cause excellent fun By attempting to pilfer from those who have none. At times the reward they will get for their pains Is to strike very tempting auriferous veins; Or, a shaft being sunk for some miles in the ground, Not infrequently nuggets of value are found. They bring us the gold when their labours are ended, And we—after thanking them prettily—spend it. MORAL Just you work for Humanity, never you mind If Humanity seems to have left you behind.

Remote and ineffectual Don That dared attack my Chesterton, With that poor weapon, half-impelled, Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held, Unworthy for a tilt with men— Your quavering and corroded pen; Don poor at Bed and worse at Table, Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable; Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes, Don nervous, Don of crudities; Don clerical, Don ordinary, Don self-absorbed and solitary; Don here-and-there, Don epileptic; Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic; Don middle-class, Don sycophantic, Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic; Don hypocritical, Don bad, Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad; Don (since a man must make an end), Don that shall never be my friend. *       *       * Don different from those regal Dons! With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze, Who shout and bang and roar and bawl The Absolute across the hall, Or sail in amply billowing gown Enormous through the Sacred Town, Bearing from College to their homes Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes; Dons admirable! Dons of Might! Uprising on my inward sight Compact of ancient tales, and port And sleep—and learning of a sort. Dons English, worthy of the land; Dons rooted; Dons that understand. Good Dons perpetual that remain A landmark, walling in the plain— The horizon of my memories— Like large and comfortable trees. *       *       * Don very much apart from these, Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted, Don to thine own damnation quoted, Perplexed to find thy trivial name Reared in my verse to lasting shame. Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing, Repulsive Don—Don past all bearing. Don of the cold and doubtful breath, Don despicable, Don of death; Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level; Don evil; Don that serves the devil. Don ugly—that makes fifty lines. There is a Canon which confines A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse If written in Iambic Verse To fifty lines. I never cut; I far prefer to end it—but Believe me I shall soon return. My fires are banked, but still they burn To write some more about the Don That dared attack my Chesterton.

Godolphin Horne was Nobly Born; He held the Human Race in Scorn, And lived with all his Sisters where His Father lived, in Berkeley Square. And oh! the Lad was Deathly Proud! He never shook your Hand or Bowed, But merely smirked and nodded thus: How perfectly ridiculous! Alas! That such Affected Tricks Should flourish in a Child of Six! (For such was Young Godolphin's age). Just then, the Court required a Page, Whereat the Lord High Chamberlain (The Kindest and the Best of Men), He went good-naturedly and took A Perfectly Enormous Book Called People Qualified to Be Attendant on His Majesty,

Be kind and tender to the Frog, And do not call him names, As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’ Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’ Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’ Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’: The Frog is justly sensitive To epithets like these. No animal will more repay A treatment kind and fair; At least so lonely people say Who keep a frog (and, by the way, They are extremely rare).

The nicest child I ever knew Was Charles Augustus Fortescue. He never lost his cap, or tore His stockings or his pinafore: In eating Bread he made no Crumbs, He was extremely fond of sums, To which, however, he preferred The Parsing of a Latin Word— He sought, when it was within his power, For information twice an hour, And as for finding Mutton-Fat Unappatising, far from that! He often, at his Father’s Board, Would beg them, of his own accord, To give him, if they did not mind, The Greasiest Morsels they could find— His Later Years did not belie The Promise of his Infancy. In Public Life he always tried To take a judgement Broad and Wide; In Private, none was more than he Renowned for quiet courtesy. He rose at once in his Career, And long before his Fortieth Year Had wedded Fifi, Only Child Of Bunyan, First Lord Aberfylde. He thus became immensely Rich, And built the Splendid Mansion which Is called The Cedars, Muswell Hill, Where he resides in affluence still, To show what everybody might Become by SIMPLY DOING RIGHT.