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THE FIRST VOICE.
91
"Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troop
Who find a solace in the soup?
"Canst thou desire or pie or puff?
Thy well-bred manners were enough,
Without such gross material stuff."
"Yet well-bred men," he faintly said,
"Are not unwilling to be fed:
Nor are they well without the bread."
Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:
"There are," she said, "a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke.
"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there:
"We grant them—there is no escape—
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape."
