Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/40

 Now his fore-arm has nipped the balustrade,

And perfect thus, that living bridge compactly

Built out of apish heads and tails exactly

As Ulloa wrote, a mighty archway made

(For that’s maintained unshaken in his pages

Which seems a mere quaint jest to modern sages).

O’er the ape bridge now fresh detachments thundered,

And in brief time the luckless vessel plundered

Down to the very hold, fresh tawdry adding

To that about the beach already gadding.

Here, last to show himself amongst his own,

Lo! my lord Hanuman. Now, only, reader,

He had caught up his subjects, tho’ their leader.

He really could not skip it o’er lianas

But picked his way on land like us bimanas,

Leaning upon a piece of sugar cane,

A sorry trot being all he could attain,

For every step, almost, he lost his balance,

And bloody falls ’mid thorns tried his nonchalance,

This kind of monkey scarce at all being able

To walk upright like chimpanzee or cego.

Thus, last, he tramped it o’er the sand and pebble

And paused like some personified Quos ego.

“Ah! ha!” he shrieked, “this spectacle divine is!”

Then raised his cane in threatening hand, but so

Reft of that necessary prop, his highness

Plumped on his fore-paws without more ado;

And so, on all fours planted, like the rest,

Continued thus to chide his hair-brained hopefuls:

“Enough of foolishness and childish jest!

What’s in the hampers yet, just let there stop, fools!

And first within our woodland empire be