Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapaire - PM
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 03:18 PM

That's my last duckdog painted on the wall,
Looking as if he were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Amos' hands
Worked busily a day, and there he stands.
Will't please you sit and look at him?
Sir, 'twas not his master's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the duckdog's cheek: perhaps
Fra Amos chanced to say "His collar laps
Over Gluon's neck too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-drool that dies along his jowls": such stuff
Was courtesy, he thought, and cause enough               
For calling up that spot of joy. He had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; he liked whate'er
He looked on, and his spit went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! He raced around the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from him alike the approving speech,         
Or bark, at least. He licked men, -- good! but licked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if he ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old bone
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" -- and if he let
Himself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
His wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, he smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed him; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all was retrieved together. There he stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence                              
Of mine for bones and Alpo will be disallowed;
Though his fair beagle's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Gluon again, though,
Eating a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cooked en croute for him!

--Hellas Quinton Baderwy-Mustonn, Poems Old And New (New York: Cooking House Press, 1875)