Quoth Leo, "Good friend Porcupine, you may be quite prophetic,
And I a bit 'too previous.' Your picture's most pathetic;
But I've seen your pachydermatous Poor Innocent when furious,
And for a gentle graminivorous creature, it is curious
How he'll run amuck like a Malay, and crunch canoes and foes up,
With those same tusks, which might have made a Mammoth turn his toes up.
So if you please, friend Porcupine, your quills I shall not trust again
To meet those spears, which hate would wash—in blood, 'ere they should rust again.
Mere quills won't quell an Impi, or make Behemoth good-neighbourly.
Leo must guard this spot, where British enterprise and labour lie,