Sunday, October 30, 2011

 

All Creatures Great and Small

George Orwell, in his essay Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, wrote, "The toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets." One exception is Ralph Hodgson, Lines:
No pitted toad behind a stone
  But hoards some secret grace;
The meanest slug with midnight gone
  Has left a silver trace.

No dullest eyes to beauty blind,
  Uplifted to the beast,
But prove some kin with angel kind,
  Though lowliest and least.
In the penultimate line, "kind" is a noun (with "angel kind" cf. "mankind"), not an adjective.



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