I. NEAK Lake Mohrin't is said, by day and night, The folks all tremble with unceasing fright Lest the Great Crab, we all have heard about, By some device should manage to get out! He's fastened down below, you see, And in the strongest way; For, should he happen to get free, The deuce would be to pay! II. An ugly monster of prodigious strength, A mile in breath and twenty miles in length, He keeps the water foaming in the lake, And, once on land, what trouble he would make! For with his backward motion (so An ancient seer declares) All other things would backward go, Throughout the world's affairs. III. The Burgomaster -- mightiest of men -- Would turn, that day, a sucking child again; The Judge and Parson, changed to little boys, Would quit their learned books for tiny toys; And so with matrons, maids, and men, All things would be reversed; And everything go back again To what it was at first. IV. Such mischief to the people! While they eat, Back to the plate will go the smoking meat, And thence to pot! The bread will turn again To flour; flour go back once more to grain. Back to the flax (O sight of shame!) Will go the linen shirt; The flax return to whence it came, A linseed in the dirt. V. The timber in the house at once will move As trees again back to the primal grove; The hens will turn to chickens, in a crack, The chicks into the eggs again go back, And these the Great Crab with his tail, At one prodigious crash, Will knock, as with a threshing-flail, To everlasting smash! VI. Now Heaven defend us from so dire a fate! The world, I think, is doing well of late; And for the Crab, let all good people pray That in his lake he evermore may stay! Else even this poor song (alack! How very sad to think!) With all the rest must needs go back, And be a drop of ink! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MADMAN OF THE SOUTH SIDE by CLARENCE MAJOR LEEDLE YAWCOB STRAUSS by CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS SNOW-FLAKES by MARY ELIZABETH MAPES DODGE THE TEARS OF THE POPLARS by EDITH MATILDA THOMAS PRAYER FOR A CITY CHILD by DOROTHY P. ALBAUGH LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 2. FINLAY by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE CALIPH'S DRAUGHT by EDWIN ARNOLD |