Part 190 (1/2)
O say, have you seen at the Willows so green-- So charming and rurally true-- A Singular bird; with a manner absurd, Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you?
Ever seen this Australian Emeu?
It trots all around with its head on the ground, Or erects it quite out of your view; And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy, ”O, what a sweet pretty Emeu!
Oh! do Just look at that lovely Emeu!”
One day to this spot, when the weather was hot, Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue; And beside her there came a youth of high name Augustus Florell Montague: The two Both loved that wild foreign Emeu.
With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead Of the flesh of the white c.o.c.katoo, Which once was its food in that wild neighbourhood Where ranges the sweet kangaroo That, too, Is game for the famous Emeu!
Old saws and gimlets but its appet.i.te whet Like the world famous bark of Peru; There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard, And nothing its taste will eschew, That you Can give that long-legged Emeu!
The time slipped away in this innocent play, When up jumped the bold Montague: ”Where's that specimen pin that I gaily did win In raffle, and gave unto you, Fortescue?”
No word spoke the guilty Emeu!
”Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same, Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!”
”Nay, dearest,” she cried as she clung to his side, ”I'm innocent as that Emeu!”
”Adieu!”
He replied, ”Miss M. H. Fortescue!”
Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet, As wildly he fled from her view; He thought 'twas her sin--for he knew not the pin Had been gobbled up by the Emeu; All through ”I'm innocent as that Emeu!”
_Bret Harte._
THE TURTLE AND FLAMINGO
A lively young turtle lived down by the banks Of a dark rolling stream called the Jingo; And one summer day, as he went out to play, Fell in love with a charming flamingo-- An enormously genteel flamingo!
An expansively crimson flamingo!
A beautiful, bouncing flamingo!
Spake the turtle, in tones like a delicate wheeze: ”To the water I've oft seen you in go, And your form has impressed itself deep on my sh.e.l.l, You perfectly modelled flamingo!
You tremendously A-1 flamingo!
You in-ex-press-_i_-ble flamingo!
”To be sure, I'm a turtle, and you are a belle, And my language is not your fine lingo; But smile on me, tall one, and be my bright flame, You miraculous, wondrous flamingo!
You blazingly beauteous flamingo!
You turtle-absorbing flamingo!
You inflammably gorgeous flamingo!”
Then the proud bird blushed redder than ever before, And that was quite un-nec-es-_sa_-ry, And she stood on one leg and looked out of one eye, The position of things for to vary,-- This aquatical, musing flamingo!
This dreamy, uncertain flamingo!
This embarrasing, hara.s.sing flamingo!