Artful Anticks

Chapter 9: Nature and Art.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A collection of short, humorous poems and light fables that animate animals, children, and fairies to expose human foibles through playful rhyme and gentle irony. Pieces range from brief narrative verses to comic monologues and a short stage piece, typically concluding with a witty reversal or moral sting. Imagery moves between domestic detail and fanciful incident, and the poems vary in meter and length to keep tone brisk. Overall the work favors whimsical satire, clever wordplay, and anthropomorphic scenarios intended to amuse while lightly admonishing readers about pride, industry, and pretension.

Nature and Art.

Said a lady who wore a swell cape,
As she viewed a Rhinoceros, agape,
“To think in this age
A Beast in a cage
Is permitted our fashions to ape!”

Thought the Beast in the cage, “I declare,
One would think that these Ladies so fair
Who come to the Zoo
Have nothing to do
But copy the things that I wear!”