BUNNY'S LITTLE BIT.
This scheme of keeping rabbits
To fatten them as food
Breaks up the kindly habits
Acquired in babyhood;
For we, as youthful scions,
Were taught to love the dears
And bring them dandelions
And lift them by the ears.
We learned how each new litter
That came to Flip or Fan
Grew finer and grew fitter
With tea-leaves in the bran;
We learned which stalks were milky
And which were merely tough,
What grass was good for Silky
And what was good for Fluff.
Such moral mild up-bringing
Now makes me much distressed
When little necks need wringing
And little paws protest,
Lest wraiths from empty hutches
Should haunt me, hung in pairs,
And ghosts—'tis here it touches—
Of happy Belgian hares.
However, with my morals
I manfully shall cope,
And back my country's quarrels,
But none the less I hope
Before poor Bunny's taken
As stuff for knife and fork
The hedge-hog will be bacon,
The guinea-pig be pork.
W.H.O.