Living
The Logical Vegetarian
From Wine, Water and Song (1915)
You will find me drinking rum,
Like a sailor in a slum,
You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian.
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
So I cleared the inn of wine,
And I tried to climb the sign,
And I tried to hail the constable as "Marion."
But he said I couldn't speak,
And he bowled me to the Beak
Because I was a Happy Vegetarian.
Oh, I knew a Doctor Gluck,
And his nose it had a hook,
And his attitudes were anything but Aryan;
So I gave him all the pork
That I had, upon a fork;
Because I am myself a Vegetarian.
I am silent in the Club,
I am silent in the pub.,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
For I stuff away for life
Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.
No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian;
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very,
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
Codex Note
A drinker argues that he is the true vegetarian, because wine and ale are plant drinks. From The Flying Inn, with a chorus in which he sticks to port and sherry, 'so very, very vegetarian'.
Cite this poem
MLA
Chesterton, G. K. “The Logical Vegetarian.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/chesterton/36/.
Chicago
Chesterton, G. K. “The Logical Vegetarian.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/chesterton/36/.
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