Frog Poetry

In our fun modern world of tabloids and reality TV, it's easy to overestimate the importance of celebrity and overlook the benefits of obscurity.

That's why this poem by Emily Dickinson is one of my favorites. If ever anyone understood the joys of being a freaky loser, it was our girl Emily.

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise--you know!

How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell one's name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

Another poem that I like a lot also happens to be about frogs. Hilaire Belloc isn't as deep as Emily, but he is informative.


The Frog

Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’
Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’
Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’
Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:
The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.
No animal will more repay
A treatment kind and fair;
At least so lonely people say
Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).