* * * * *
It had a monkey—in a trap—
Suspended by the tail:
Oh! but that monkey look'd distress'd,
And his countenance was pale.
And he had danced and dangled there;
Till he grew very mad:
For his tail it was a handsome tail
And the trap had pinched it—bad.
The trapper sat below, and grinn'd;
His victim's wrath wax'd hot:
He bit his tail in two—and fell—
And killed him on the spot.
* * * * *
It had a pig—a stately pig;
With curly tail and quaint:
And the Great Mogul had hold of that
Till he was like to faint.
So twenty thousand Chinamen,
With three tails each at least,
Came up to help the Great Mogul,
And took him round the waist.
And so, the tail slipp'd through his hands;
And so it came to pass,
That twenty thousand Chinamen
Sat down upon the grass.
* * * * *
It had a Khan—a Tartar Khan—
With tail superb, I wis;
And that fell graceful down a back
Which was considered his.