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poetry that deals with
animal cruelty, blood sports
like fox hunting, bear baiting etc.
Try John Clare, "Badger" Edward
Dyson's "The Old Whim Horse"
If you can find it in translation,
Duncan Ban Macintyre's "Ben Dorain"
has some relevance as the other side of
the coin -- it is about deer
running free, and I believe in giving plugs to
any who had to contend
with His Grace the Duke of Argyll -- and
won.
William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"?
"The Hunting
of the Snark"
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's "The
Old Squire"
Henry Fielding's "A-Hunting We Will Go?"
There is Hillaire Belloc:
"The Hippopotamus"
I shoot
the hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum,
because if I use leaden ones
his hide is sure to flatten 'em
"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 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).
And then my favourite - about a poor, long-suffering
lion called
Wallace!
"The Lion and Albert" by Marriott
Edgar
There's a famous seaside place called
Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs
Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.
A grand little lad
was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with
an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.
They
didn't think much of the Ocean:
The waves, they were fiddlin' and
small,
There was no wrecks and nobody drownded,
Fact, nothing to laugh at
at all.
So, seeking for further amusement,
They paid and went into the
Zoo,
Where they'd Lions and Tigers and Camels,
And old ale and sandwiches
too.
There were one great big Lion called Wallace;
His nose were all
covered with scars -
He lay in a somnolent posture,
With the side of his
face on the bars.
Now Albert had heard about Lions,
How they was
ferocious and wild -
To see Wallace lying so peaceful,
Well, it didn't
seem right to the child.
So straightway the brave little feller,
Not
showing a morsel of fear,
Took his stick with its 'orse's 'ead 'andle
And
pushed it in Wallace's ear.
You could see that the Lion didn't like
it,
For giving a kind of a roll,
He pulled Albert inside the cage with
'im,
And swallowed the little lad 'ole.
Then Pa, who had seen the
occurrence,
And didn't know what to do next,
Said 'Mother! Yon Lion's 'et
Albert',
And Mother said 'Well, I am vexed!'
Then Mr and Mrs
Ramsbottom -
Quite rightly, when all's said and done -
Complained to the
Animal Keeper,
That the Lion had eaten their son.
The keeper was quite
nice about it;
He said 'What a nasty mishap.
Are you sure that it's your
boy he's eaten?'
Pa said "Am I sure? There's his cap!'
The manager had
to be sent for.
He came and he said 'What's to do?'
Pa said 'Yon Lion's
'et Albert,
'And 'im in his Sunday clothes, too.'
Then Mother said,
'Right's right, young feller;
I think it's a shame and a sin,
For a lion
to go and eat Albert,
And after we've paid to come in.'
The manager
wanted no trouble,
He took out his purse right away,
Saying 'How much to
settle the matter?'
And Pa said "What do you usually pay?'
But Mother
had turned a bit awkward
When she thought where her Albert had gone.
She
said 'No! someone's got to be summonsed' -
So that was decided
upon.
Then off they went to the P'lice Station,
In front of the
Magistrate chap;
They told 'im what happened to Albert,
And proved it by
showing his cap.
The Magistrate gave his opinion
That no one was
really to blame
And he said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms
Would have
further sons to their name.
At that Mother got proper blazing,
'And
thank you, sir, kindly,' said she.
'What waste all our lives raising
children
To feed ruddy Lions? Not me!'
Pam Ayres has a great humorous poem called 'The battery Hen'
The full text is part of a recent interview:
http://womansworld.atalink.co.uk/articles/article-21.phtml
Upper Primary/Lower Secondary students particularly love the punch
line about laying 'one more bloody egg'
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