Social Commentaries

A Moral Alphabet: P

by Hilaire Belloc 1870–1953

From A Moral Alphabet (1899)

Social Commentaries

P stands for Pig, as I remarked before,
A second cousin to the Huge Wild Boar.
But Pigs are civilized, while Huge Wild Boars
Live savagely, at random, out of doors,
And, in their coarse contempt for dainty foods,
Subsist on Truffles, which they find in woods.
Not so the cultivated Pig, who feels
The need of several courses at his meals,
But wrongly thinks it does not matter whether
He takes them one by one or all together.
Hence, Pigs devour, from lack of self-respect,
What Epicures would certainly reject.

MORAL.
Learn from the Pig to take whatever Fate
Or Elder Persons heap upon your plate.

MLA

Belloc, Hilaire. “A Moral Alphabet: P.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/belloc/46/.

Chicago

Belloc, Hilaire. “A Moral Alphabet: P.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/belloc/46/.

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