And darkening in fleecy flocks We seek the roots of trees and rocks And blowing thence, in summer hours, We are the fairies of the Flowers! XVIII. METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1. I DISTINCTLY remember (and who dares doubt me?) Great bulks of flowers, gigantic grasses, And thence, I date my contempt for Asses, And my deep respect for the Devil's Tail! 2. I shall never forget the exquisite feeling Of elevation, sans thought, sans care, When I twisted my tail round the wood's bough ceiling, And swung, meditatively, in the air.There's an advantage !—Fairer shapes can Aspire, yearn upward, tremble and glow, But, by means of their posteriority, apes can Look down on aspirants that walk below! 3. There was a life for a calm philosopher, Self-supplied with jacket, and trousers, and socks, Nothing to learn, no hopes to get cross over, A head that resisted the hardest knocks, Liquor and meat in serene fruition, A random income from taxes free, No cares at all, and but one ambition— To swing by the Tail to the bough of a tree! 4. Whence I firmly believe, to the consternation In gradual human degeneration And a general apely origin. Why, the simple truth's in a nutshell or thimble, Though it rouses the monkey in ignorant elves; And the Devil's Tail is a delicate symbol Of apehood predominant still in ourselves. 5. Pure class government, family glory, Were the delights of that happy lot; My politics were serenely Tory, And I claim'd old descent from God knows what : Whence I boast extraction loftier, nobler, Than the beggarly Poets one often meets, A boast I am happy to share with the cobbler Who whisked his Tail out—to whip John Keats. 6. There was a life, I assever! With reasons That lead me to scorn every star-gazing Ass; And because I loved it, at certain seasons 'Tis a pleasure to gaze in the looking-glass. |