“He had seen the young scapegraces get in and out.”

The land mouse, the water, and long-tail’d mouse, too,

Tiny field mouse, that turn’d up nose vixen the shrew,

The harvest mouse, fresh from a settler’s rick,

Were condemn’d by the great ones as not of their clique;

These reclined round a mole hill, and each dipp’d his paw

In a cocoa-nut bowl fill’d with rice, “en pillau.”

And the harvest mouse took most exceeding great pains

To squeak them a stanza in honour of grains.

[p24]
MOUSE’S SONG.