Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/45

Rh And I’d drowse and dream by the driftwood gleam; I’d dream of a polar bear; I’d dream of a cloudlike polar bear that blotted the stars on high, With ravenous jaws and flenzing claws, and the flames of hell in his eye. And I’d trap around on the frozen ground, as a proper hunter ought, And beasts I’d find of every kind, but never the one I sought. Never a track in the white ice-pack that humped and heaved and flawed, Till I came to think: “Why, strike me pink! if the creature ain’t a fraud.” And then one night in the waning light, as I hurried home to sup, I hears a roar by the cabin door, and a great white hulk heaves up. So my rifle flashed, and a bullet crashed; dead, dead as a stone fell he. And I gave a cheer, for there in his ear—Gosh ding me!—a tiny flea.

At last, at last! Oh, I clutched it fast, and I gazed on it with pride; And I thrust it into a biscuit-tin, and I shut it safe inside; With a lid of glass for the light to pass, and space to leap and play; Oh, it kept alive; yea, seemed to thrive, as I watched it night and day.