No reasonable little Child expects
A Grown-up Man to make a rhyme on X.
Moral.
These verses teach a clever child to find
Excuse for doing all that he's inclined.
Y
stands for Youth (it would have stood for Yak,
But that I wrote about him two years back).
Youth is the pleasant springtime of our days,
As Dante so mellifluously says
(Who always speaks of Youth with proper praise).
You have not got to Youth, but when you do
You'll find what He and I have said is true.
Moral.
Youth's excellence should teach the Modern Wit
First to be Young, and then to boast of it.
Z
for this Zébu, who (like all Zebús)[C]
Is held divine by scrupulous Hindoos.
Moral.
Idolatry, as you are well aware,
Is highly reprehensible. But there,
We needn't bother,—when we get to Z
Our interest in the Alphabet is dead.
[C]
Von Kettner writes it "Zébu"; Wurst "Zebu":
I split the difference and use the two.