The Square Book of Animals

AN EXPLANATION

 
Friend, seek not here (to feed the mind)
Zoology's recondite feasts:
Here you will find but common, kind,
And unsophisticated beasts!
 
 
Yet fresh the life of farm and grange
As that which o'er the ocean roams:
Take for a change a narrower range—
An English book for English homes!
 

THE BRITISH BULL-DOG

 
You swing the gate; and there he stands to greet you,
With growl or grin, as you are strange or known:
According to your merits will he treat you—
An Englishman who loves and guards his own.