Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UNDERWOODS: BOOK 1: 30. A PORTRAIT, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UNDERWOODS: BOOK 1: 30. A PORTRAIT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I am a kind of farthing dip
Last Line: Thank god, and there's an end of that!
Alternate Author Name(s): Stevenson, Robert Lewis Balfour
Subject(s): Criticism & Critics; Mallock, William Hurrell (1849-1923); Poetry & Poets


I am a kind of farthing dip,
Unfriendly to the nose and eyes;
A blue-behinded ape, I skip
Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.

I am 'the smiler with the knife,'
The battener upon garbage, I --
Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?

Yet still, about the human pale,
I love to scamper, love to race,
To swing by my irreverent tail
All over the most holy place;

And when at length, some golden day,
The unfailing sportsman, aiming at,
Shall bag, me -- all the world shall say:
Thank God, and there's an end of that!





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