There was a massive St Bernard and a sinewy greyhound
And a wise old collie, when breaking through
Came a hideous dachshund
Proclaiming ‘But I’m like a liver sausage gone bad, I’m a dog too!’
There was Mohammed and Plato and Shakespeare and Dante,
And Spinoza and Hegel – ‘but I’ll tell you flat’
Cried J.G. Smith, wine and spirit merchant, Milngavie
‘A man’s a man for a’ that’.
This poem is published in ‘The revolutionary art of the future – rediscovered poems by Hugh MacDiarmid’
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolutionary-Art-Future-Rediscovered-Poems/dp/1857547330