Our Crocodile
Our Crocodile
1Our crocodile, (Psammarathis,
3Our crocodile is good and dear,
4And eats a damsel once a year.
5To me unworthy hath he done
6This favour three times -- one by one
7Three daughters ate! I praise therefore
8And honour him for evermore.
9Each Spring there is an exhibition
10Of maidens, and a competition.
11The baffled fair are blank and spiteful,
12The victor's triumph most delightful.
13Three months secluded doth she dwell
14With the high pontiff in his cell,
15Due-worshipping each deity,
16And Venus more especially.
17Then, on an island in the Nile,
18They take her to our crocodile,
19He wags his tail, the great jaws stir,
20And make a happy end of her.
21B a bo! O you brainless child!
22(My fourth, sir,) dirty, rude, and wild!
23You'll break my heart! you'll ne'er be meet
24For any crocodile to eat!
Notes
2] Ombi: modern Negadeh, where once the crocodile was worshipped, according to Juvenal's fifteenth satire. Back to Line
Publication Notes
Richard Garnett, Poems (London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane; Boston: Copeland and Day, 1895): 83-84. PR 4708 G5P6
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire