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1890
I THIS is the sorrowful story | |
| Told as the twilight fails | |
| And the monkeys walk together | |
| Holding their neighbours’ tails:— | |
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| “Our fathers lived in the forest, | 5 |
| “Foolish people were they, | |
| “They went down to the cornland | |
| “To teach the farmers to play. | |
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| “Our fathers frisked in the millet, | |
| “Our fathers skipped in the wheat, | 10 |
| “Our fathers hung from the branches, | |
| “Our fathers danced in the street. | |
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| “Then came the terrible farmers, | |
| “Nothing of play they knew, | |
| “Only … they caught our fathers | 15 |
| “And set them to labour too! | |
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| “Set them to work in the cornland | |
| “With ploughs and sickles and flails, | |
| “Put them in mud-walled prisons, | |
| “And—cut off their beautiful tails! | 20 |
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| “Now, we can watch our fathers, | |
| “Sullen and bowed and old, | |
| “Stooping over the millet, | |
| “Sharing the silly mould, | |
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| “Driving a foolish furrow, | 25 |
| “Mending a muddy yoke, | |
| “Sleeping in mud-walled prisons, | |
| “Steeping their food in smoke. | |
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| “We may not speak with our fathers, | |
| “For if the farmers knew | 30 |
| “They would come up to the forest | |
| “And set us to labour too.” | |
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| This is the horrible story | |
| Told as the twilight fails | |
| And the monkeys walk together | 35 |
| Holding their neighbours’ tails. | |
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II ’TWAS when the rain fell steady an’ the Ark was pitched an’ ready, | |
| That Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below; | |
| He dragged them all together by the horn an’ hide an’ feather, | |
| An’ all excipt the Donkey was agreeable to go. | 40 |
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| First Noah spoke him fairly, thin talked to him sevarely, | |
| An’ thin he cursed him squarely to the glory av the Lord:— | |
| “Divil take the ass that bred you, and the greater ass that fed you— | |
| “Divil go wid ye, ye spalpeen!” an’ the Donkey wint aboard. | |
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| But the wind was always failin’, an’ ’twas most onaisy sailin’, | 45 |
| An’ the ladies in the cabin couldn’t stand the stable air; | |
| An’ the bastes betwuxt the hatches, they tuk an’ died in batches, | |
| Till Noah said:—“There’s wan av us that hasn’t paid his fare!” | |
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| For he heard a flusteration ’mid the bastes av all creation— | |
| The trumpetin’ av elephints an’ bellowin’ av whales; | 50 |
| An’ he saw forninst the windy whin he wint to stop the shindy | |
| The Divil wid a stable-fork was bedivillin’ their tails. | |
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| The Divil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous:— | |
| “To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?” | |
| An’ the Divil gave for answer: “Evict me if you can, sir, | 55 |
| “For I came in wid the Donkey—on Your Honour’s invitation.” | |
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