Came around our sleeping mats—came and went:
Where the crocodile glared with malignant stare,
And the horse of the river, with watery mane
That flash’d in the sun, from his oozy lair
Rose to gaze on the white and wondrous men;
And the lion, with muzzle bent low to earth,
Mock’d the thunder-cloud with his cruel mirth:
Where the speckled fowls the Mimosa decked
Like blue-bells studded with opal dew;
And giraffes, pard-spotted, deer-eyed, swan-necked,