Lions and Ants ~ A Poem by Walt Mason

Lions an Ants

Walt Mason

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter’s lair,
and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair;
but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread,
sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head;
and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame,
and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame.
Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants,
and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance!
And he used insup lots of language of a deep magenta tint,
and apostrophised the insects in a style unfit to print.
And it’s thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along,
we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong,
but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts,
put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

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