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	Category: Funny Animal Poems        Classic humorous and funny poems about animals, snakes, lions, cats, birds, frogs, and more.    THE PIG    acob! I do not like to see thy nose
 Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder pig,
 It would be well, my friend, if we like him,
 Were perfect in our kind!... And why despise
 The sow-born grunter?... He is obstinate,
 Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast
 That banquets upon offal.... Now I pray you
 Hear the pig's counsel.
                                                         Is he obstinate?
 We must not, Jacob, be deceived by words;
 We must not take them as unheeding hands
 Receive base money at the current worth
 But with a just suspicion try their sound,
 And in the even balance weight them well
 See now to what this obstinacy comes:
 A poor, mistreated, democratic beast,
 He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek
 Their profit, and not his. He hath not learned
 That pigs were made for man,... born to be brawn'd
 And baconized: that he must please to give
 Just what his gracious masters please to take;
 Perhaps his tusks, the weapons Nature gave
 For self-defense, the general privilege;
 Perhaps,... hark, Jacob! dost thou hear that horn?
 Woe to the young posterity of Pork!
 Their enemy is at hand.
                                                         Again. Thou say'st
 The pig is ugly. Jacob, look at him!
 Those eyes have taught the lover flattery.
 His face,... nay, Jacob! Jacob! were it fair
 To judge a lady in her dishabille?
 Fancy it dressed, and with saltpeter rouged.
 Behold his tail, my friend; with curls like that
 The wanton hop marries her stately spouse:
 So crisp in beauty Amoretta's hair
 Rings round her lover's soul the chains of love.
 And what is beauty, but the aptitude
 Of parts harmonious? Give thy fancy scope,
 And thou wilt find that no imagined change
 Can beautify this beast. Place at his end
 The starry glories of the peacock's pride,
 Give him the swan's white breast; for his horn-hoofs
 Shape such a foot and ankle as the waves
 Crowded in eager rivalry to kiss
 When Venus from the enamor'd sea arose;...
 Jacob, thou canst but make a monster of him!
 An alteration man could think, would mar
 His pig-perfection.
                                                         The last charge,... he lives
 A dirty life. Here I could shelter him
 With noble and right-reverend precedents.
 And show by sanction of authority
 That 'tis a very honorable thing
 To thrive by dirty ways. But let me rest
 On better ground the unanswerable defense.
 The pig is a philosopher, who knows
 No prejudice. Dirt?... Jacob, what is dirt?
 If matter,... why the delicate dish that tempts
 An o'ergorged epicure to the last morsel
 That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more.
 If matter be not, but as sages say,
 Spirit is all, and all things visible
 Are one, the infinitely modified,
 Think, Jacob, what that pig is, and the mire
 Wherein he stands knee-deep!
                                                         And there! the breeze
 Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile
 That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossom'd field
 Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise.
 
                                                              Robert Southey.
 
 
		
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