There is a rabbit everywhere you tread,

To-day I heard a rabbit in the hall,

The same that sits at evening in my shoes

And sings his usefulness, or simply chews;

There is no corner sacred to the Muse—

And how shall man demobilise them all?

Far back, when England was devoid of food,

Men bade me breed the coney and I bought

Timber and wire-entanglements and hewed

Fair roomy palaces of pine-wood wrought,