Like an overgrown bottle of India-rubber;

The clumsiest, wobblingest, queerest of creatures,

With nothing but small gimlet-holes for features.

This a Mermaid? Oh, don't tell me!

It's simply some sly scientifical spree,

And I mean to say it's a thundering shame

To bestow the Siren's respectable name,

Which savours of all that is rare and romantic,

On such a preposterous monster as this is,

Whose hideous phiz and ridiculous antic,