TO A DEAR DEPARTED.
["Georgina," the largest of the giant tortoises at the Zoo, has died. She was believed to be about two hundred and fifty years old.]
Winds blow cold and the rain, Georgina,
Beats and gurgles on roof and pane;
Over the Gardens that once were green a
Shadow stoops and is gone again;
Only a sob in the wild swine's squeal,
Only the bark of the plunging seal,
Only the laugh of the striped hyæna
Muffled with poignant pain.
Long ago, in the mad glad May days,
Woo'd I one who was with us still;
Bade him wake to the world's blithe heydays,
Leap in joyance and eat his fill;
Sang I, sweet as the bright-billed ousel, a
Pæan of praise for thy pal, Methuselah.
Ah! he too in the Winter's grey days
Died of the usual chill.
He was old when the Reaper beckoned,
Ripe for the paying of Nature's debt;
Forty score—if he'd lived a second—
Years had flown, but he lingered yet;
But you had gladdened this vale of tears
For a bare two hundred and fifty years;
You, Georgina, we always reckoned
One of the younger set.
Winter's cold and the influenza
Wreaked and ravaged the ranks among;
Bills that babbled a gay cadenza,
Snouts that snuffled and claws that clung—
Now they whistle and root and run
In Happy Valleys beyond the sun;
Never back to the ponds and pens a
Sigh of regret is flung.
Flaming parrots and pink flamingoes,
Birds of Paradise, frail as fair;
Monkeys talking a hundred lingoes,
Ring-tailed lemur and Polar bear—
Somehow our grief was not profound
When they passed to the Happy Hunting Ground;
Deer and ducks and yellow dog dingoes
Croaked, but we did not care.
But you—ah, you were our pride, our treasure,
Care-free child of a kingly race.
Undemonstrative? Yes, in a measure,
But every movement replete with grace.
Whiles we mocked at the monkeys' tricks
Or pored apart on the apteryx;
These could yield but a passing pleasure;
Yours was the primal place.
How our little ones' hearts would flutter
When your intelligent eye peeped out,
Saying as plainly as words could utter,
"Hurry up with that Brussels-sprout!"
How we chortled with simple joy
When you bit that impudent errand-boy;
"That'll teach him," we heard you mutter,
"Whether I've got the gout."
Fairest, rarest in all the Zoo, you
Bound us tight in affection's bond;
Now you're gone from the friends that knew you,
Wails the whaup in the Waders' Pond;
Wails the whaup and the seamews keen a
Song of sorrow; but you, Georgina,
Frisk for ever where warm winds woo you,
There, in the Great Beyond.
ALGOL.
