DOG PRINCE.
“Shake hands, Prince!”
Black as a coal, and curly, too.
Is the dog I introduce to you.
He gives at once his right-hand paw,
None a softer one ever saw.
“Beg, Prince!”
Up he rises on his hind legs,
Flies both little fore-feet, and begs,
Not for money, nor food, nor clothes,
But merely to show how much he knows.
“Speak, Prince!”
You’d think from that first growling note,
He’d a bumble-bee inside his throat;
’Tis not a bee, but only a bark;
For answer, shrill and eager, hark!
“Roll over, Prince!”
He’ll do all other things you ask;
But this is a task, a dreadful task.
He hates the dust on his silky hide
And in the fringe of his ears beside.
“Roll over, I say!”
Such a struggle as he goes through;
He wants to do it, and don’t want to!
He rubs one black ear on the floor,
Rubs a little, and nothing more.
“Ah, Prince! Ah, Prince!”
Do you call that minding? Yet, I find
Yours is a common way to mind:
Willing to do what you like to best,
And only half-way doing the rest.