Explore "Brother Bruin" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A dancing Bear grotesque and funny / Earned for his master heaps of money, / Gruff yet good-natured, fond of honey, / And cheerful if the day was sunny. / Past hedge and ditch, past pond and wood / He tramped, and on some common stood; / There, cottage children circling gaily, / He in their midmost footed daily. / Pandean pipes and drum and muzzle / Were quite enough his brain to puzzle: / But like a philosophic bear / He let alone extraneous care / And danced contented anywhere.
Still, year on year, and wear and tear, / Age even the gruffest, bluffest bear. / A day came when he scarce could prance, / And when his master looked askance / On dancing Bear who would not dance.