As a friend to the children
   commend me the Yak.
 You will find it exactly the thing:
   It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
 Or lead it about with a string.

 The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
   (A desolate region of snow)
 Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
   And surely the Tartar should know!
 Then tell you papa where the Yak can be got,
   And if he is awfully rich
 He will buy you the creature --
   or else
     he will not.
 (I cannot be positive which.)

Another delightful little poem from Belloc’s “The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts”. While the poem as a whole is certainly worth a read, those of you familiar with my taste in poetry will be unsurprised to learn that I’m running it mainly for the ending <g>.

Links

poem #124, the previous poem we’ve run from “The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts”, has a biography of Belloc.

We’ve run several of his other poems too, though no other children’s poem - see The Wondering Minstrels

Afterthought

A nice companion piece to today’s poem would be Frank Jacobs’ poem about the Yak, which ran in Mad. I’ll run it sometime if I can dig up a copy.

— Martin