What the Prince of I Dreamt
I dreamt it! such a funny thing—
And now it’s taken wing;
I s’pose no man before or since
Dreamt such a funny thing?
It had a Dragon; with a tail;
A tail both long and slim,
And ev’ry day he wagg’d at it—
How good it was of him!
And so to him the tailest
Of all three-tailed Bashaws,
Suggested that for reasons
The waggling should pause;
And held his tail—which, parting,
Reversed that Bashaw, which
Reversed that Dragon, who reversed
Himself into a ditch.
It had a monkey—in a trap—
Suspended by the tail:
Oh! but that monkey look’d distress’d,
And his countenance was pale.
And he had danced and dangled there;
Till he grew very mad:
For his tail it was a handsome tail
And the trap had pinched it—bad.
The trapper sat below, and grinn’d;
His victim’s wrath wax’d hot:
He bit his tail in two—and fell—
And killed him on the spot.
It had a pig—a stately pig;
With curly tail and quaint:
And the Great Mogul had hold of that
Till he was like to faint.
So twenty thousand Chinamen,
With three tails each at least,
Came up to help the Great Mogul,
And took him round the waist.
And so, the tail slipp’d through his hands;
And so it came to pass,
That twenty thousand Chinamen
Sat down upon the grass.
It had a Khan—a Tartar Khan—
With tail superb, I wis;
And that fell graceful down a back
Which was considered his.
Wherefore all sorts of boys that were
Accursed, swung by it;
Till he grew savage in his mind
And vex’d, above a bit:
And so he swept his tail, as one
Awak’ning from a dream;
And those abominable ones
Flew off into the stream.
Likewise they hobbled up and down,
Like many apples there;
Till they subsided—and became
Amongst the things that were.
And so it had a moral too,
That would be bad to lose;
“Whoever takes a Tail in hand
Should mind his p’s and queues.”
I dreamt it!—such a funny thing!
And now it’s taken wing;
I s’pose no man before or since
Dreamt such a funny thing?
H. Cholmondeley-Pennell.