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The Logical Vegetarian

From Wikisource
The Logical Vegetarian (1915)
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
112845The Logical Vegetarian1915Gilbert Keith Chesterton

You will find me drinking rum,
     Like a sailor in a slum,
You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian.
     You will find me drinking gin
     In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.

     So I cleared the inn of wine,
     And I tried to climb the sign,
And I tried to hail the constable as “Marion.”
     But he said I couldn’t speak,
     And he bowled me to the Beak
Because I was a Happy Vegetarian.

     Oh, I knew a Doctor Gluck,
     And his nose it had a hook,
And his attitudes were anything but Aryan;
     So I gave him all the pork
That I had, upon a fork;
Because I am myself a Vegetarian.

     I am silent in the Club,
     I am silent in the pub,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
     For I stuff away for life
     Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.

     No more the milk of cows
     Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian;
     I will stick to port and sherry,
     For they are so very, very
So very, very, very Vegetarian.