snake

"You talk of snakes," said Jack the Rat,
"But blow me, one hot summer,
I seen a thing that knocked me flat -
Fourteen foot long or more than that,
It was a reg'lar hummer!
Lay right along a sort of bog,
Just like a log!

"The ugly thing was lyin' there
And not a sign o' movin',
Give any man a nasty scare;
Seen nothin' like it anywhere
Since I first started drovin'.
And yet it didn't scare my dog.
Looked like a log!

"I had to cross that bog, yer see,

Wise men I hold those rakes of old
Who, as we read in antique story,
When lyres were struck and wine was poured,
Set the white Death's Head on the board-
Memento mori.

Love well! love truly! and love fast!
True love evades the dilatory.
Life's bloom flares like a meteor past;
A joy so dazzling cannot last
Memento mori.

Stop not to pluck the leaves of bay
That greenly deck the path of glory,
The wreath will wither if you stay,
So pass along your earnest way
Memento mori.

We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
It's his business to see that the Radical horde
From loyalty's path does not swerve us;
But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord
For they say that His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that wild animals walk in the street,
Where the wary marsupial is hopping?
Does he think that the snake and the platypus meet

'Do you see over my shoulders falling,
Snake-like ringlets waving free?
Have no fear, for they are twisted
To allure you unto me.'

Thus she spoke, the gentle dove,
Listen to your plighted love:
'Oh, how long I wait, till my sweetheart comes back,' she said,
'Laying his caressing hand underneath my burning head.'

Securely sunning in a forest glade,
A mild, well-meaning snake
Approved the adaptations he had made
For safety’s sake.

He liked the skin he had—
Its mottled camouflage, its look of mail,
And was content that he had thought to add
A rattling tail.


The tail was not for drumming up a fight;
No, nothing of the sort.
And he would only use his poisoned bite
As last resort.


A peasant now drew near,
Collecting wood; the snake, observing this,
Expressed concern by uttering a clear

It was such a lovely sunshine-day,
The house and the yard couldn't hold me;
I roved to the woods, on my back I lay,
In cradle of fancy rolled me;
But there were ants, and gnats that bite,
The horse-fly was keen, the wasp showed fight.

"Dear me, don't you want to be out in this fine
weather?" --said mother, who sat on the steps and sang.

It was such a lovely sunshine-day,
The house and the yard couldn't hold me;
A meadow I found, on my back I lay,
And sang what my spirit told me;

He shows a fool in every wise
Who day and night forever hies
From feast to feat to fill his paunch
And make his figure round and staunch,
As though his mission he were filling
By drinking too much wine and swilling
And bringing hoar-frost o’er the grape.
In to the fool’s ship toss the ape,
He kills all reason, is not sage,
And will regret it in old age.
His head and hands will ever shake,
His life a speedy end may take,
For wine’s a very harmful thing,
And man shows no strong reasoning

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front