Self-Praise
O the swallows fly about the sky,
And they swoop among the trees,
And they catch small bugs in their little mugs
And swallow them down with ease.
It’s fun, no doubt, to whirl about
In a swift and airy jig;
But as for me, I’d much rather be
A pig.
The rabbit, at night, when the moon is bright,
Waits till it’s nearly dawn;
Then out he hops, with his friends plays cops
And robbers upon the lawn.
It’s fun, I suppose, to wriggle your nose
And live on a lettuce diet;
But it’s not my dish, and I wouldn’t wish
To try it.
O cats are slim and full of vim
And they stay out late at night;
They’re merry blades, who sing serenades
On the fence, by the moon’s pale light.
It may be fun to wash with your tongue
And sing like the late Caruso,
But I’ll tell you square, I wouldn’t care
To do so.
Now take the pig. His brains aren’t much bigger than cats’ or swallows’ or rabbits’,
But in debate his words carry weight,
And he’s formed very regular habits.
Pigs know all the answers; they’re conceded as dancers,
To be light as a bird on a twig.
So it mustn’t gall you if people call you
A pig.
This is the song of Frederick,
Patriot, poet, and pig;
In pedigree, princely, patrician;
In appearance, both pleasing and plig.*
Precise he may be, and peculiar,
Preferring potatoes to pie
Yet his perfect uprightness and polished politeness
No person can ever deny.
In the pen where he pens all his poems
He will often sit pensive for hours,
Yet a panther in battle they’ve proved him,
This pig of great personal powers.
Of all pigs he’s the pink of perfection
Of all pigs he’s the pearl beyond price
Though by no means the biggest,
Of all the pigs he’s the piggest,
And that will go everywhere twice.
*“Excuse me,” said Freginald, “but what does ‘plig’ mean?”
“I made it up,” said Freddy. “It just came to me. Sounds well, don’t you think?”
Some people think pigs should feel pain
Because they’re so awfully plain,
But they don’t, and the reason
Is easy to seize on:
Being handsome’s a terrible strain.
If you’re handsome, you’re always obsessed
With a doubt you’re not looking your best,
And then you get worried
And hurried and flurried
And spill things all over your vest.
Whereas, if you’re homely as sin,
You just have to bear it and grin,
For no perseverance
Will improve your appearance;
You’re beaten before you begin.
It is no use to sit down and squall
If you can’t be the belle of the ball;
If you’re cross-eyed and fat
You just say: “That’s that!”
And you don’t have to worry at all.
Now the pig, as I previously said,
About looks never worries his head.
The pig has no passion
For being in fashion
And painting his fingernails red.
And that is why pigs are so gay,
Always laughing and shouting Hooray!
Their looks they ignore;
They don’t care any more;
And they sing and rejoice all the day.
Freddy sings:
O, I am the King of Detectives,
And when I am out on the trail
All the animal criminals tremble,
And the criminal animals quail,
For they know that I’ll trace ’em and chase ’em and place ’em
Behind the strong bars of the jail.
Jinx sings:
O, I am the terror of rodents.
I can lick a whole army of rats
Like that thieving, deceiving old Simon
And his sly sneaking, high squeaking brats.
For I, when I meet ’em, defeat ’em and eat ’em—
I’m the boldest and bravest of cats.
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Both sing:
In our chosen careers we’ll admit that
We haven’t much farther to climb,
But we’re weary of trailing and jailing,
Of juries, disguises and crime.
We want a vacation from sin and sensation—
We don’t want to work all the time.
Then it’s out of the gate and down the road
Without stopping to say good-bye,
For adventure waits over every hill,
Where the road runs up to the sky.
We’re off to play with the wind and the stars,
And we sing as we march away:
O, it’s all very well to love your work,
But you’ve got to have some play.
No better detective than Freddy
Can be found in the State of New York;
Always calm, always cool, always ready,
Though a pig, he’s by no means just pork.
Of animals he is the smartest,
Of pigs he’s the brightest by far;
At following clues he’s an artist,
At tracking down crime he’s a star.
It was dark in the woods,
It was very, very scary,
But the pig trudged along,
Always watchful and wary.
The pig trudged along,
And he made a little song
(He was rather literary).
It was quite extraordinary
How he sang his little song
In a voice clear and strong.
Though it’s rather customary
For a pig, when something’s wrong
In a forest dark and scary,
Dim and dark and solitary.
To sneak quietly along
Not to be so very, very
Brave and bold and military.
But this pig, he was bold,
He was brave as a lion,
And he walked through the woods
Without yellin’ or cryin’—*
* At this point something startled the singer and he stopped singing.
Little sparrow, wren or crow,
Little singing vireo,
Little robin on a twig,
Don’t you wish you were a pig?
You can fly among the trees,
Chase the buzzing bumblebees;
You can swoop about the sky,
Very low or very high.
Such a life is very fine,
But it’s not as nice as mine.
Don’t you sometimes wish that you
Had four legs instead of two?
You have bugs and things to eat;
I am fed on proper meat.
You must live up in the sky;
I’ve a comfortable sty.
Honest, don’t you think you’d be
Better off down here like me?
My tail is not impressive
But it’s elegant and neat.
In length it’s not excessive—
I can’t curl it round my feet—
But it’s awfully expressive,
And its weight is not excessive,
And I don’t think it’s conceit,
Or foolishly possessive
If I state with some aggressiveness that it’s the final master touch
That makes a pig complete.
The pig has two legs at each end,
Yet he also has two on each side;
And consider him closely, my friend,
He’s with one at each corner supplied.
That makes twelve if my count is correct,
Yet my count’s unaccountably wrong,
For you see only four,
There aren’t any more,
And that is the end of my song.
Oh, the young pigs fly
About the sky
And they zoom and dive and roll;
They yell and whoop
As they spin and loop
Under the sky’s blue bowl.
They sing and shout
As they whiz about,
For there’s elbow room in the sky;
And it’s lots more fun
Up there in the sun
Than down in their stuffy sty.
Oh, the pig is bold
And when he’s told
That a hurricane’s on the way,
Does he turn and run?
He does like fun!
He hollers and shouts Hurray!
Oh, not a fig
Cares the fearless pig
When the thunder bangs and crashes;
Right into the heart
Of the storm he darts,
And plays tag with the lightning flashes.
Oh, wild and free
Is a pig like me!
When the moon is riding high
I dive and swoop at her,
Whiz around Jupiter—
Oh this is the life for I!
