As a friend to the children
Yak commend me the Yak.
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch,
Carry and fetch you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about
Leading it about with a string with a string.
The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
A petin Thibet Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
Where a yak can be got And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature -
or else
Father and son he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)
The Polar Bear is unaware
The polar bear Of cold that cuts me through:
For why? He has a coat of hair.
I wish I had one too!
The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the waste,
He has a big head and a very small waist;
The lion But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are
grim,
And a good little child will not play with him.
The Tiger on the other hand, The tiger is kittenish and
mild,
He makes a pretty playfellow for any little child;
And mothers of large families(who claim to common sense)
The tiger again Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and
expense.
The Dromedary is a cheerful bird:
Dromedary I cannot say the same about the Kurd.
The whale The Whale that wanders round the Pole
Is not Whale is not a table dish a table fish.
You cannot bake or boil him whole
Nor serve him in a dish;
Cut his blubber up But you may cut his blubber up
And melt it down for oil.
And so replace Oil for light the colza bean
(A product of the soil).
These facts should all be noted down
And ruminated on,
Be ruminated on By every boy in Oxford town
Who wants to be a Don.
Camel "The Ship of the Desert."
I shoot the Hippopotamus
Shot hippo with bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
Flatten 'em his hide is sure to flatten 'em.
The Dodo
The Island The Dodo used
to walk around,
Dodo walking around And take the sun and air.
The sun yet warms his native ground -
The Dodo is not there!
Dodo is not there The voice which used to squawk and squeak
Is now for ever dumb -
In a museum Yet may you see his bones and beak
All in the Mu-se-um.
The species Man and Marmozet
Are intimately linked;
Marmozet The Marmozet survives as yet,
But Men are all extinct.
The camelopard The Camelopard, it is said
By travellers(who never lie),
He cannot stretch out straight in bed
Because he is so high.
The clouds surround his lofty head,
His hornlets touch the sky.
How shall
I hunt
I Hunting the camelopard
this quadruped?
cannot tell!
Not I!(A picture of how people try
And fail to hit that head so high.)
I'll buy a little parachute
(A common parachute with wings),
I'll fill it full of arrowroot
And other necessary things,
Camelopard running And I will slay this fearful brute
With stones and sticks and guns and slings.
(A picture of Parachute and wings how people shoot
With comfortfrom a parachute.)
The Learned Fish This learned Fish has not sufficient brains
To go into the water when it rains.
The Elephant When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a Tail
little tail behind, Trunk
So LARGE a trunk before.
The Big Baboon The Big Baboon is found upon
The plains of Cariboo:
He goes about
With nothing on with nothing on
(A shocking thing to do).
But if he
Dressed respectfully dressed respectably
And let his whiskers grow,
How like this Big Baboon would be
Like Mr. So-and-So To Mister So-and-so!
Rhinoceros, your hide looks all undone,
The Rhinoceros You do not take my fancy in the least:
You have a horn You have a horn where other brutes have none:
Rhinoceros, you are an ugly beast.
The Frog Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As 'Slimy skin,' or 'Polly-wog,'
Or likewise 'Ugly James,'
Or 'Gap-a-grin,' or 'Toad-gone-wrong,'
Or 'Bill Bandy-knees':
The frog is sensitive The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.
No animal will more repay
A treatment kind and fair;
At least
Or so lonely people say so lonely people say
Who keep a frog(and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).
Oh! My! Oh! My!