Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/307

XVII] "The music of Midsummer-madness
 * Shall sting him with many a bite,

Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,
 * He shall groan with a gloomy delight:

He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,
 * In platitudes luscious and limp,

Such as deck, with a deathless adorning, The Song of the Shrimp!

"When the Ducklet's dark doom is decided,
 * We will trundle him home in a trice:

And the banquet, so plainly provided,
 * Shall round into rose-buds and rice:

In a blaze of pragmatic invention
 * He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:

But he has not a friend fit to mention, So hit him again!"

He has shot it, the delicate darling!
 * And the Voices have ceased from their strife:

Not a whisper of sneering or snarling,
 * As he carries it home to his wife:

Then, cheerily champing the bunlet
 * His spouse was so skilful to bake,

He hies him once more to the runlet, To fetch her the Drake! 