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قراءة كتاب The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 8
wing,
But as you look, avoid his sting.
CHORUS.
“Squeak! squeak! beware the owl’s beak,
Our hearts, like our voices, are so very weak.”
[p25]
THE SUPPER.
“Hark! hark! to the sound now my comrades rejoice,
’Tis the bell-bird who calls us, I know well his voice;
Campanero, who graciously offer’d his song
When the feast was prepared, ’tis his ding-a-dong-dong;”
So exclaim’d a poor turnspit, their cook, who’d been toiling
All day very busily roasting or broiling.
At this moment that spoiler of pic-nics, a shower,
Obliged them to rush to the vine-cover’d bower,
Where in it—oh! joy to the hungry! they found
The repast long expected laid out on the ground.
They had raised to the office of “maître d’hotel”
The glutton, (and who could perform it so well?)
Who with excellent taste, and an eye to a share,
Had collected the following luxuries there:—
Bass and gar in such plenty it made their hearts glad;
The sun and the moon-fish, the star-fish and dab,
The sting-ray and sheepshead, drum, grooper and crab;
Turkey-buzzards, swans, eagles, form’d excellent hashes,
When flavour’d with tallow-nuts, pompions, and squashes;
Baked frogs, “en surprise,” from a forest on fire,
Flamingoes, removed by a huge Lammergeyer;
Gulls, ravens, herons, boobies, bald-coots, water-hens,
And yards of strung ortolans, linnets, and wrens;
Loons, noddies, and nuthatches cook’d in a stew,
Whale blubber “en gras,” and guanas “au bleu;”
Jerk’d beef from the south, and large watersnake broth,
And a great dish of pemmican brought from the north;
Green branches of trees from the beaver’s damp hut,
Bowls of milk from the cow-tree and hickory-nut;
Then venison “en câche,” maize, wild rice, and, to boot,
Guavas, cranberries, mangoes, grapes, shaddock, breadfruit!
Here they sate and discuss’d the magnificent fare
Which the glutton had superintended with care.
The bears suck’d their paws, and pronounced it delicious.
Of the noise-dreading Mr. Raccoon it was said,
That he sopp’d all his food, which was voted ill-bred;
And that, puff’d with conceit, he declared he look’d wise,
A distinction he owed to his spectacled eyes.
’Twas observed too (you know how the gossips will talk,)
Master guinea-pig stuff’d till he hardly could walk,
Though which dainty was best it was hard to determine:
The meat was too fresh for the epicure ermine;
To which glutton answered, “That all he could say
Was, that it, like himself, was ‘bien mortifiée.’”
All the others declared themselves very well pleased,
Though it must be confess’d they were terribly squeezed
By the poor little cubs, whom their dams would insert