Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/58

 Amongst his staff, behold! the monarch ride,

Strapped in a case of leather sleek and yielding,

His field perspective dangling at his side:

Once from the stalls alone the foot’s light course

It spied, but now surveys both foot and horse.

Like some death-bearing cloud through dell and cover

The host rolls on: around in terror hover

Flocks of macaws, and fly with fitful wailing

Before the rattling drum and shrill fife sailing.

In stately pomp march forth the royal forces,

But rather slow: to quick march, run or double,

Not yet avail the simian foot’s resources,

And every step they take’s a world of trouble:

Dense brushwood clogs the van: a quagmire swallows

A whole battalion, uniforms grow rarer

Minced on the thorns, the recreant helmet follows

The tendrils’ noose twitched high above its wearer

Tree stumps trip many up, the overweighted

Dragoons’ unlucky steeds are quite checkmated,

And without fail capsize at every root,

So that the horse remains behind the foot.

Not Flora only, all the woodland Fauna,

Seems also up in arms at every corner:

A cloud of winged ants with every dole ’tis

That first invests them—like a mustard poultice:

Foul leeches here festoon their shuddering trotters,

Before a hissing snake the vanguard totters,

And here all thrill with dread, a form divining

More awful yet, yon bamboos’ ambush lining.

When half its daily course the sun completed,

Within that wood’s yet unexplored dominions

They pitched their camp all footsore, tired, and heated,