THE DROWNING DUCKS.
MONGST the sights that Mrs. Bond
Enjoyed, yet grieved at more than others—
Were little ducklings in the pond,
Swimming about beside their mothers—
Small things like living water lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-dillies.
“It’s very hard,” she used to moan,
“That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters—mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings.”
For why!—each little yellow navy
Went down—all downy—to old Davy!
She had a lake—a pond I mean—
It’s wave was rather thick than pearly—
She had two ducks, their napes were green—
She had a drake, his tail was curly,—
Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!
The birds were both the best of mothers—
The nests had eggs—the eggs had luck—
The infant D.’s came forth like others—
But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle,
As die when they began to paddle!
For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;
They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!
No peccant humour in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,—
No poaching cook—a frying pander
To appetite,—destroyed their yolks,—
Beneath her very eyes, Od’ rot ’em!
They went like plummets to the bottom.
The thing was strange—a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson it bewildered him!
To hear of chicks that could not swim.
Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed—and she tried divers,
Which dived as all seemed born to do;
No little ones were e’er survivors—
Like those that copy gems, I’m thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!