Humble Woodchuck / Glorious Groundhog

We earlier published  an English version of St Augustine's celebrated hymn to that humble wonder, the woodchuck:

Not by Pride

‘Twas not by Pride he sank to ’s low Estate,

the Humble Woodchuck  lowly  hugs the ground,

not curs’d to limblessness for serpent’s sin,

for he was thus   since e’er the world began.

Not for him the proud cock’s rooftop crow,

nor raptor’s roar :  all mute  he chews the weeds.

No rainbow like the peacock's  bears our friend,

though he, like him, was once hand-crafted too.

From ants to angels  reacheth Nature’s scale.

Each creature decks the rung that him befits.

Aloft, the sounding choirs of Seraphim;

Beneath, the groundhog  creeps along the mold.

Yet this I say to you, and speak it true:

Not Solomon in all his glory  was e’er arrayed like one of these.

[For the background, see here:
https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2011/12/lost-sonnet-of-st-augustine.html ]

For the complete roster of our marmotological eulogia, see these:

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/humble%20woodchuck