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Agrave Bas Ben Adhem
by Ogden Nash

My fellow man I do not care for.
I often ask me, What's he there for?
The only answer I can find
Is, Reproduction of his kind.
If I'm supposed to swallow that,
Winnetka is my habitat.
Isn't it time to carve Hic Jacet
Above that Reproduction racket?

To make the matter more succint:
Suppose my fellow man extinct.
Why, who would not approve the plan
Save possibly my fellow man?
Yet with a politician's voice
He names himself as Nature's choice.

The finest of the human race
Are bad in figure, worse in face.
Yet just because they have two legs
And come from storks instead of eggs
They count the spacious firmament
As something to be charged and sent.

Though man created cross-town traffic,
The Daily Mirror, News and Graphic,
The pastoral fight and fighting pastor,
And Queen Marie and Lady Astor,
He hails himself with drum and fife
And bullies lower forms of life.

Not that I think much depends
On how we treat our feathered friends,
Or hold the wrinkled elephant
A nobler creature than my aunt.
It's simply that I'm sure I can
Get on without my fellow man.

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Translations for this Poem

English	Spanish	French	German
Italian	Portuguese	Korean	Russian
Chinese	Japanese


	Poems by Ogden Nash Adventures Of Isabel Agrave Bas Ben Adhem Always Marry An April Girl A Caution To Everybody A Drink With Something In It A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor A Word To Husbands Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else Exce Biological Reflection Celery Childrens Party Columbus Come On In The Senility Is Fine Common Cold Crossing The Border Custard The Dragon And The Wicked Knigh Everybody Tells Me Everything Family Court First Child Second Child Fleas Further Reflections On Parsley Good-By Now or Pardon My Gauntlet Goody For Our Side And Your Side Too Grandpa Is Ashamed Introspective Reflection I Didnt Go To Church Today I Do I Will I Have Just Keep Quiet And Nobody Will Notice Kiplings Vermont Lather As You Go Lines Indited With All The Depravity Of Lines On Facing Forty Lines To Be Embroidered On A Bib Listen Look What You Did Christopher More About People My Dream No Doctors Today Thank You No You Be A Lone Eagle Oh To Be Odd Old Dr Valentine To His Son Old Men One From One Leaves Two One Third Of The Calendar Peekabo I Almost See You PG Wooster Just As He Useter Portrait Of The Artist As A Prematurely Possessions Are Nine Points Of Conversa Pretty Halcyon Days Reflections On Ice-Breaking Reflection On A Wicked World Reflection On Babies Reflection On Caution Reflection On The Fallibility Of Nemesi Requiem Samson Agonistes Soliloquy In Circles Song Of The Open Road Song To Be Sung By The Father Of Infant So Does Everybody Else Only Not So Much Spring Comes To Murray Hill Tableau At Twilight The Abominable Snowman The Ant The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Claus The Camel The Cantaloupe The Catsup Bottle The Centipede The Chipmunk The Clean Plater The Cow The Cuckoo The Dog The Duck The Eel The Firefly The Fly The Germ The Guppy The Hippopotamus The Hunter The Jellyfish The Joyous Malingerer The Lion The Middle The Octopus The Ostrich The Parent The People Upstairs The Perfect Husband The Pig The Porcupine The Praying Mantis The Purist The Rhinoceros The Romantic Age The Shrimp The Sniffle The Solitary Huntsman The Squab The Swan The Tale of Custard the Dragon The Termite The Terrible People The Turtle The Wasp Tin Wedding Whistle To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes Whi To My Valentine Very Like A Whale Whats The Use What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner Or Winter Complaint You Can Be A Republican Im A Genocrat


	A B C D E F G H I J K L M NOP R S T V W Y [ALL]


	Octavio Paz


	Ogden Nash


	Oliver Goldsmith


	Oliver Wendell Holmes


	Oscar Wilde


	Osip Mandelstam


	Ovid


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