The snail, most people think a pest,
It spins no web nor weaves a nest.
Its morals make the prudes uptight:
Low, languid lust! Hermaphrodite!
It bares no fang nor tooth nor tusk,
Lacks backbone! Cowardly mollusc!

And yet, I rather love the snail:
Who thrush and humans seldom fail
To crush to eat or disembowel
With vicious beak or garden trowel.

It totes around with stoic grace
A sylvan, spiral, carapace.
With leaden ballast, sailing slow,
Go carefully my escargot.