The Puffing Fish that I possessed
Would fill my heart with pride;
But ah! one day I made a joke--
He laughed so that he died.
You should have seen my Polar Bear,
He was a lively beast;
But what became of him at last
I've no idea, the least.
My Grizzly Bear was certainly
By all my friends admired.
He tried to climb the Monument,
And when he failed, expired.
Perhaps the dearest of them all
Was James, my Cockatoo--
He took to stopping out at nights;
I gave him to the Zoo
So now I haven't anything;
It's lonely, I must own.
I'll get a little calf, I think--
I cannot live alone!
"I don't wonder you call that 'Menagerie Poetry,'" your Aunt Amy said when Mrs. Mouser ceased speaking; "but I think I understood, even without the aid of the verses, the moral you intended to draw."
"I should hope you did; but I remembered those lines, and it seemed to me they came in just right. There is a story he tells about the Elephant and the Bee, which teaches the same kind of a lesson."