It was because the dustman did not come;

It was because our cat was overfed,

And, gorged with some superior pabulum,

Declined to touch the cod's disgusting head;

It was because the weather was too warm

To hide the horror in the refuse-bin,

And too intense the perfume of its form,

My wife commanded me to do the sin,

To take and cast it in the twinkling Thames—

A practice which the neighbourhood condemns.

So on the midnight, with a strong cigar

And scented handkerchief, I tiptoed near,

But felt the exotic fragrance from afar;

I thought of ARTHUR and Sir BEDIVERE:

And it seemed best to leave it on the plate,

So strode I back and told my curious spouse

"I heard the high tide lap along the Eyot,

And the wild water at the barge's bows."

She said, "O treacherous! O heart of clay!

Go back and throw the smelly thing away."

Thereat I seized it, and with guilty shoon

Stole out indignant to the water's marge;

Its eyes like emeralds caught the affronted moon;

The stars conspired to make the thing look large;

Surely all Chiswick would perceive my shame!

I clutched the indecency and whirled it round

And flung it from me like a torch in flame,

And a great wailing swept across the sound,

As though the deep were calling back its kith.

I said, "It will go down to Hammersmith.

"It will go down beyond the Chelsea flats,

And hang with barges under Battersea,

Will press past Wapping with decaying cats,

And the dead dog shall bear it company;

Small bathing boys shall feel its clammy prod,

And think some jellyfish has fled the surge;

And so 'twill win to where the tribe of cod

In its own ooze intones a fitting dirge,

And after that some false and impious fish

Will likely have it for a breakfast dish."

The morning dawned. The tide had stripped the shore;

And that foul shape I fancied so remote

Lay stark below, just opposite next-door!

Who would have said a cod's head could not float?

No more my neighbour in his garden sits;

My callers now regard the view with groans;

For tides may roll and rot the fleshly bits,

But what shall mortify those ageless bones?

How shall I bear to hear my grandsons say,

"Look at the fish that grand-dad threw away"?