<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Yapping Cur</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I WAS walking in the sun, my day's work</p><p class="line">done.</p><p class="line">And the great world rolled like a wheel,</p><p class="line">When a cur came yapping, came yap-yap-</p><p class="line">yapping.</p><p class="line">When a cur came yapping at my heel.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Along the pleasant way where the little folk</p><p class="line">play.</p><p class="line">Past the church, where the grown folk</p><p class="line">kneel.</p><p class="line">The tiresome, monotonous, interminable yap-</p><p class="line">ping,</p><p class="line">The yapping of the cur at my heel!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Were he hungry I would feed him at my cot</p><p class="line">hard by,</p><p class="line">Where are hearts that have hungred and</p><p class="line">can feel.</p><p class="line">He is fed as well as I am, and housed as well</p><p class="line">as I,</p><p class="line">And his pastime is yapping at one's</p><p class="line">heel.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Shall I send him all asprawl from my good</p><p class="line">stout shoe,</p><p class="line">Turn his yapping to a yelping and a</p><p class="line">squeal?</p><p class="line">Nay, leave him to the thing Fate fashioned</p><p class="line">him to do—</p><p class="line">His dog's-work of yapping at one's heel.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For God made the arrows that around life</p><p class="line">whirr.</p><p class="line">And the thunders that above life peal,</p><p class="line">And He made, too, the miserable, mangy little</p><p class="line">cur,</p><p class="line">And its instinct for yapping at one's heel.</p></div></body></html> · Great War