While deep in the sleeping wood
The Lion breathes heavily,
Though every dove in each tree coo'd,
Yet would he sleep on wearily.
* * * * *
The Unicorn and Lion strong
Dance now together
(But surely they did no wrong—
For it was the summer weather?)
In among the red-gold grain,
Ankle-deep in the Lilies of France—
And I, for one, could scarce refrain
From joining that heraldic dance.
II. FOX TROT
WHEN SOLOMON MET THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
The navy at Ezion-Geba
Gazed across the water amazed;
When Solomon met the Queen of Sheba
Lions in the desert were dazed
With wonder at her striped pavilion
That blazed like a new parhelion;
They roared their admiration
At this strange coruscation
Till the satyrs
Took their tawny children
Trampling through the sand
To march with the procession, to march with the band.
The flaming phoenix flew with its feathers to fan
The Queen at the head of her caravan;
But, the phoenix, though famously fabulous,
Was jealous, envious, and emulous
For the Queen of Sheba had a retinue
Strictly in keeping with her revenue—
Six thousand camels and camelopards
Ten thousand and ninety nigger bodyguards.
The camelopards, proud-necked and tall
Would scarcely deign to notice the Queen at all,
But holding their heads as high as zebras
Looked down on a hundred dwarf, harnessed zebras
Bred for their stripes, with such success
That the Queen could play a game of chess
When travelling. The camels kneel
Offer their humps for the Queen to feel,
Nodding arched-necks and plumes of ostrich-feather,
Dyed like her bright Abyssinian weather.
The ten thousand niggers beat on gourds and golden gongs,
Slashing the air with their piebald songs.
* * * * *
Thus the Queen met the King of Jerusalem
And he
Seemed wiser
Than Methuselem,
With a great black beard,
And a nose like a scythe,
He lived in the palace,
And subsisted on a tithe!
He gave the Queen of Sheba a welcome;
Proportionate to her income;
But this amazing Amazon
Was lovable, generous and free.
She brought a gift to Solomon of cinnamon,
With an Almug and a Nutmeg tree—
These he placed before his palace
For the pleased
Admiration
Of the populace.
Each sweet-smelling branch bore a budding bell of gold
(Oh! the blood of Israelites ran cold...)
When evening-wind blurred the hills with blue
The swinging and the singing of the bells sang true,
These by some magic stratagem
Played the Sheban National Anthem,
While the trill of each bell was like an Abyssinian bird,
Or the golden voice of the Queen—for each word
She spoke, trembled, sparkled in the air,
Then spread its wings, and flew from her.
But the Queen of Sheba went with Solomon
To his country house at Lebanon.
She did not bring him any cedar trees
For these
Would have been de-trop.
Instead she brought him some Pekoe-trees
In a beautiful Chinese bowl
(For she had a very marked objection to
Endowing Newcastle with coal)
And she brought him gifts of hot-house grapes,
Of ivory,
Of ebony,
Of elephants and apes,
Of peacocks, of pearls, and a hundred pygmy slaves
With skins like an orange, and hair that waves,
And each of them wore a turban,
Picked out with the plumes of a pelican,
But of all her gifts, by far the rarest,
Brought from the terrible central forest,
With a vein of gold in its ivory horn,
Was a lovelorn
Milk-white unicorn;
But the King, though sweet as honey,
Had an eye for the value of money,
So he only gave her a heraldic lion
Embossed with the arms (and nose) of Zion.