How they dug him out of cold-store like a Canterbury sheep,
Took their tongues and kindly licked him where his nose had gone to sleep,
Called attention to the cognac which they wore in little kegs
And remobilised the stagnant circulation in his legs.
How they lifted up their voices, baying like an iron bell,
Till the monks of good St. Bernard heard the same and ran like hell—
Ran and bore him to their hospice, where they put him into bed
And applied a holy posset stiff enough to wake the dead.
Heir to this superb tradition, born to such a pride of race,
From the doggy flair that tells you what a lineage you can trace