My little dusky Pekinese.


THE BATH

Hang garlands on the bathroom door;
Let all the passages be spruce;
For, lo, the victim comes once more,
And, ah, he struggles like the deuce!

Bring soaps of many scented sorts;
Let girls in pinafores attend,
With John, their brother, in his shorts,
To wash their dusky little friend.

Their little friend, the dusky dog,
Short-legged and very obstinate,
Faced like a much-offended frog,
And fighting hard against his fate.

No Briton he! From palace-born
Chinese patricians he descends;
He keeps their high ancestral scorn;
His spirit breaks, but never bends.

Our water-ways he fain would'scape;
He hates the customary bath
That thins his tail and spoils his shape,
And turns him to a fur-clad lath;