The frogs have been singing in in the rushes by my local lake but no matter how hard I look I have never seen one. Apparently they are quite small. Their voices aren’t. They sing with gay abandon. And here you are probably thinking, ah yes I know the one riddet riddet, but no, not these ones. These are Kiwi frogs…Brrruurrp Brurrrrp they shout Brrrurrrp Brrrurrrp ! Some say this is a sign of rain.
And do not call him names,
As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’
Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’
Or ‘Gap-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’
Or ‘Bill Bandy-knees’:
To epithets like these
Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).
The Frog is from Hilaire Belloc’s book ‘The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts’.
Hilaire Belloc was known as a writer, orator, poet, sailor, satirist, man of letters, soldier and political activist. To read more about his interesting life go here.The illustrator of this and other books by Hilaire was Lord Ian Basil Gawaine Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood or BTB (4 November 1870 – 3 July 1917), also known as Lord Basil Temple Blackwood, a British lawyer, civil servant and book illustrator. He died in action in World War 1. Read more here.
This week’s editor of The Tuesday Poem Hub is Harvey Molloy with an unusual poem by Ruth Corkill called You are nocturnal but I am an insomniac. Pop over to the Hub and have a read and while you’re there check out the variety of Tuesday Poets in the sidebar. You will find much to please you.
NB Due to a temporary glitch the widget for the current Tuesday poets is missing but will be replaced soon. Meanwhile there are lots of other interesting poets and sites which remain in the sidebar. 🙂
NB The good news is that the Tuesday Poets have reappeared.
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