Classic Poem

Oh, Mr Cross!
Permit a sorry stranger to draw near,
And shed a tear
(I've shed my shilling) for thy recent loss!
I've been a visitor,
Of old, a sort of a Buffon inquisitor
Of thy menagerie--and knew the beast
That is deceased!--
I was the Damon of the gentle giant,
And oft have been,
Like Mr Kean,
Tenderly fondled by his trunk compliant;
Whenever I approach'd, the kindly brute
Flapp'd his prodigious ears, and bent his knees,--
It makes me freeze
To think of it!--No chums could better suit,
Exchanging grateful looks for grateful fruit,--
For so our former dearness was begun.
I bribed him with an apple, and beguiled
The beast of his affection like a child;
And well he loved me till his life was done
(Except when he was wild):
It makes me blush for human friends--but none
I have so truly kept or cheaply won!

Here is his pen!--
The casket,--but the jewel is away!--
The den is rifled of its denizen--
Ah, well a day!
This fresh free air breathes nothing of his grossness,
And sets me sighing, even for its closeness.
This light one-storey
Where, like a cloud, I used to feast my eyes on
The grandeur of his Titan-like horizon,
Tells a dark tale of its departed glory.
The very beasts lament the change, like me;
The shaggy Bison
Leaneth his head dejected on his knee!
Th' Hyaena's laugh is hush'd, and Monkey's pout,
The Wild Cat frets in a complaining whine,
The Panther paces restlessly about,
To walk her sorrow out;
The Lions in a deeper bass repine,--
The Kangaroo wrings its sorry short fore paws,
Shrieks come from the Macaws;
The old bald Vulture shakes his naked head,
And pineth for the dead,
The Boa writhes into a double knot,
The Keeper groans
Whilst sawing bones,
And looks askance at the deserted spot--
Brutal and rational lament his loss,
The flower of thy beastly family!
Poor Mrs Cross
Sheds frequent tears into her daily tea,
And weakens her Bohea!

O Mr Cross, how little it gives birth
To grief, when human greatness goes to earth;
How few lament for Czars!--
But oh the universal heart o'erflow'd
At his high mass,
Lighted by gas,
When, like Mark Antony, the keeper show'd
The Elephant scars!--
Reporters' eyes
Were of an egg-like size,
Men that had never wept for murder'd Marrs!
Hard-hearted editors, with iron faces
Their sluices all unclosed,--
And discomposed
Compositors went fretting to their cases!--
That grief has left its traces:
The poor old Beef-eater has gone much greyer
With sheer regret,
And the Gazette
Seems the least trouble of the beast's Purveyor!

Well! he is dead!
And there's a gap in Nature of eleven
Feet high by seven--
Five living tons!--and I remain--nine stone
Of skin and bone!
It is enough to make me shake my head
And dream of the grave's brink--
'Tis worse to think
How like the Beast's the sorry life I've led!--
A sort of show
Of my poor public self and my sagacity,
To profit the rapacity
Of certain folks in Paternoster Row,
A slavish toil to win an upper story--
And a hard glory
Of wooden beams about my weary brow!
Oh, Mr C.!
If ever you behold me twirl my pen
To earn a public supper, that is, eat
In the bare street,--
Or turn about their literary den--