98
The Ballad of the Emeu.
One day to this spot, when the weather was hot,
Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name—
Augustus Florell Montague:
The two
Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.
With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead
Of the flesh of the white cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood
Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo;
That too
Is game for the famous Emeu!
Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whets
Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,
And nothing its taste will eschew
That you
Can give that long-legged Emeu!
The time slipped away, in this innocent play,
When up jumped the bold Montague:
