The Logical Vegetarian
"Why shouldn't I have a purely vegetarian drink?
Why shouldn't I take vegetables in their highest form, so to speak?
The modest vegetarians ought to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetable drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the blood of bulls and elephants, as all conventional meat-eaters do,
I suppose"—Dalroy. 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
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
Because I was a Happy Vegetarian. Oh,
I know 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
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 a rigid Vegetarian. No more the milk of cows Shall pollute my private
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.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Other author posts
The Song of the Strange Ascetic
If I had been a Heathen, I'd have praised the purple vine, My slaves should dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine
The Holy of Holies
‘Elder father, though thine eyes Shine with hoary mysteries, Canst thou tell what in the heart Of a cowslip blossom lies ‘Smaller than all lives that be, Secret as the deepest sea, Stands a little house of seeds, Like an elfin’s granary ...
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
The men that worked for They have their graves at home: And bees and birds of About the cross can roam
A Cider Song
To J S M The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine;