The Frog

By Hilaire Belloc 1870–1953 Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’

Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,

They are extremely rare).

Source: Complete Verse (1970)

Biography

Hilaire Belloc is considered one of the most controversial and accomplished men of letters of early twentieth-century England. An author whose writings continue to draw either the deep admiration or bitter contempt of readers, he was an outspoken proponent of radical social and economic reforms, all grounded in his vision of Europe as a "Catholic society." Although many critics have attacked Belloc's prescriptive polemical works . . .

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