Chapter I: WONDER if an animal

Lives in the pillar-box,
For when the postman opens it
You see a cage with locks.

And surely letters do not want
A cage with bars and clamps;
They have no wings, they could not fly,
They're held by sticky stamps.

Perhaps the postman keeps a pet,
A savage beast of prey;
For lions, seals and diving-birds
Are fed three times a day.

And all those figures on the plate
Are meant perhaps for you
To learn what time the beast is fed
Like others at the Zoo.

And now I come to think of it,
The postman's coat and hat
Is not unlike a keeper's who
Feeds animals with fat.

Besides, he always shuts the door
With a tremendous bang,
As if he feared to see stick out
An irritable fang.

But then again I never heard
The faintest roar or squeak,
I never saw a sniffing nose
Or spied a hooky beak.

So after all perhaps there's not
A bird, a beast or snake.
And yet to-morrow I shall post
A slice of cherry-cake.

IT is a pleasant thing to watch
The coalmen at their work;
They do not seem to mind the dark
Where many dangers lurk.

The braver of them goes below
Into the cellar black,
And calls out in a cheerful voice
To bring another sack.

The other grunts and groans a lot
Beneath his load of coal,
And down the ladder goes with care
Until he gains the hole.

He turns his burden upside down,
The inside rattles out,
And a delicious smell of coal
Gets everywhere about.

The braver one takes up his spade
And shovels it away;
The other wipes his shiny face,
And asks the time of day.

But it is very strange to me
That neither seems to want
To put the ladder down the hole
And climb down where I can't.

A man, they say, once broke his leg
By falling down a grating,
And nearly died for want of food,
Because they kept him waiting

A week before they pulled him out
And took him to his home,
From which he never more went forth
The London streets to roam.

But coalmen do not run these risks,
They have no nurse to frown,
So they might spend the whole long day
In climbing up and down.[I]

[I] They are silly not to.