ABSTRACT
So there together in the willow-tree Our several pastimes Poll and I pursued; Some, much resembling still, for to and fro, Exalted in her wiry globe, she swung, As if to mimic there my sport below. Thou wert the only creature, bird or beast, Excluded from my lavish fondness, Poll! Fowls of the air, and beasts, and creeping things, Ay, reptiles - slimy creatures - all that breathed The breath of life, found favour in my sight; And strange disgust I’ve seen (I thought it strange) Wrinkle their features who beheld me touch, Handle, caress the creatures they abhorred; Enchase my finger with the palmer-worm Or caterpillar’s green, cold, clammy ring, Or touch the rough back of the spotted toad. One of that species, for long after years, Ev’n till of late, became my pensioner - A monstrous creature! - It was wont to sit Among the roots of an old scraggy shrub, A huge Gum-Cystus: All the summer long ‘Princess Hemjunah’ (titled so by me In honour of that royal spell-bound fair So long compelled in reptile state to crawl), ‘Princess Hemjunah’ there, from morn to eve, Made her pavilion of the spicy shrub; And they who looked beneath it, scarce discerned That living clod from the surrounding mould But by the lustre of two living gems That from the reptile’s forehead upward beamed Intelligent, with ever-wakeful gaze. There daily on some fresh green leaf I spread A luscious banquet for that uncouth guest - Milk, cream, and sugar, - to the creature’s taste Right welcome offering, unrejected still. When autumn winds ’gan strew the crisped leaves Round that old Cystus, to some lonelier haunt, Some dark retreat the hermit Reptile crawled: Belike some grotto, ’neath the hollow roots Of ancient laurel or thick juniper, Whose everlasting foliage darkly gleamed Through the bare branches of deciduous trees. There, self-immured, the livelong winter through Brooded unseen the solitary thing: E’en when young Spring with violet-printed steps Brushed the white hoar-frost from her morning path, The creature stirred not from its secret cell: But on some balmy morn of ripening June, Some morn of perfect summer, wakened up With choirs of music poured from every bush,
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Dews dropping incense from th’ unfolding leaves Of half-blown roses, and the gentle South Exhaling, blending, and diffusing sweets - Then was I sure on some such morn to find My Princess crouched in her accustomed form Beneath the Cystus.
