Classic Poem

I would not wrong the human kind,
Though I've but scanty faith in it;
Yet in my La Fontaine I find
That brutes have often shrewdest wit.
We all love sayings bright and new,
And (not my fellow-man to pique)
Perhaps they wouldn't be so few
If animals could only speak.

For instance, take the sorry hacks
That pull a street-car o'er the stones;
All day the driver swears, and cracks
His lash about their smarting bones.
In hot and cold, in wet and snow,
They toil and suffer, patient, meek;
Some new profanity we'd know
If animals could only speak!

Whenever through the streets you see
His course some hapless blind man feel,
His little dog is sure to be
Somewhere a near him, watchful, leal.
In every eye for pity's tear,
The brute's eyes, longing, seem to seek;
True eloquence we oft might hear
If animals could only speak!

In summer nights the kind moon shines
On many a lonely country road,
The lover then throws down the lines
And tightly holds his buxom load.
The horse looks back and sees — ah, well!
It brings the blushes to my cheek
To think what stories he could tell
If animals could only speak.

The cook below delights to flirt
With her policeman by the hour;
That's why she ruins the dessert,
And why the bread is always sour.
Beneath the stove the tabby sleeps
With one eye open, fat and sleek;
He'd show how faithful tab he keeps
If animals could only speak!

I think it's time that I were done;
My muse grows clumsy in its feet.
(For diagram that goes with pun,
Address 620 Bogus Street.)
I greatly fear my friends will say:
" That poet's brain is waxing weak —
The ass would rhyme in just that way
If animals could only speak! "