Joe F--Re setting to music, a number of those verses metrically fit songs from Gilbert and Sullivan musicals, which seem to me to have an appropriate degree of silliness:

I shoot the Hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones his hide is sure to flatten 'em

vs.

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

(And I take your point. Belloc, Chesterton, Kipling: you don't have to endorse their various views to love their work.)

Le Scaramouche--Belloc and Chesterton would heartily agree!