THE FIDDLER AND THE CROCODILE
ONE day a fiddler from the North,
Out Memphis way, went walking forth;
He smoked his pipe and winked his lids,
And said, “Ah, ah! the Pyramids?”
In this that fiddler took good heed;
The Pyramids were there indeed;
Sing Amon-Râ, sing Gizeh town,
Cheops, Cephrenes, mummy brown!
Thus said he on the banks of Nile,
When out there crawled a crocodile,
And when he turned, more scared than hurt,
The creature seized him by the skirt.
The crocodile was fierce and strong,
And twenty mortal feet was long.
The fiddler said, “It has been guessed
That music soothes the savage breast.”
He drew his skirt—there being a pause—
From out the alligator’s jaws;
For, crocodile or alligator,
The beast was something of that nature.
Sing bulrushes, sing cats and leeks,
Sing tawny gods with senseless beaks,
Sing scarabæi, if you’ve patience,
Isis, Osiris, inundations!