Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Chipmunk
THE CHIPMUNK
Strolling in the city garden
Where the gardens touched the woodlands
(Always with new eyes beholding
Men and beasts and birds and flowers
In your land, so fair and friendly,
In America so wondrous);
Suddenly I spy, careering,
Tail in air, alert, observant,
Glittering with black-beady eyeballs
On the rail-edge, like rope-dancer,
Some small beast not known in England.
"What is that?" I said, inquiring,
"Can it be Longfellow's squirrel,
Hiawatha's Adjidaumo?"
"Say! and don't you really know him?"
Laughingly replied my comrade,
Tan-faced, prairie boy of ten;
"That's the Chipmunk, and we kill him
For his smooth, gray, stripey skin."
"Ah!" I said, "don't kill the Chipmunk,
If his little coat has stripes!
Brother he must be, or cousin
To a Chipmunk that I know
Dwelling in the Indian Jungle.
No one kills the small geloori
"Over there in far-off India,
Ever since they heard this story
How its coat came to be striped."
"Why, do tell!" cried my companion;
And I told the Hindoo story
All to save chipmunks and squirrels.
Once, among the palm-groves wandering,
Shiva, Lord and God of all things,
By the sea-shore saw a squirrel
Gray, with bushy tail and bright eyes,
Dipping constantly in ocean,
Dipping twenty times a minute,
Dipping deeply in the salt waves
Bushy tail, and then besprinkling
On the shore the gathered water.
Quoth the God, "What art thou doing,
Little gray, insensate Squirrel!
Dipping in the mighty ocean
Tail so insignificant?"
And the Squirrel meekly answered:
"Oh, Creator of all living,
Glorious Shiva! I am trying
To bale dry the Indian Sea;
For there came a furious tempest
Which laid low this lofty palm-tree
Where I built my happy nest;
And the palm has fallen seaward,
And the nest lies in the water,
And my wife and pretty children
In the nest will float away;
Therefore, all the night and day here,
Do I dip my tail and shake it,
Hoping, if I labor stoutly,
At the last to bale the sea dry,
So that I may save my darlings
Even though I spoil my tail."
Gravely spake the Lord of Heaven:
"Truly 'tis a good example,
Little, gray, absurd Geloori!
Which you set to families.
If all husbands were as faithful,
And all fathers proved as fond,
Happier would be those I fashion,
Sweet would pass the lives I give!"
Then He stooped, and, with his great hand—
Hand that makes the men and spirits—
Hand that holds the stars and planets
As we grasp a bunch of grapes—
Shiva stroked the toiling squirrel;
And there came, from nose to tail-end,
Four green stripes upon the gray;
Marks by the Supreme Hand planted
As a sign of love forever.
Then He lifted high that hand,
Waved it to the rolling waters,
Waved it to the roaring Main,
Which ran back with all its surges
Like white dogs that know their master,
Leaving bare the rocks and seaweed,
Leaving high and dry the palm-tree.
And the little squirrel hastened—
Cocking high his tail again,
Reached his woven house of grass-blades—
Found his wife, and found his children
Dry and well, and chirping welcomes.
So he brought them safe to dry land,
But the wonder was to see
All their little smooth backs "stripey"
With the sign of Shiva's fingers!
That is why, in distant India,
Good men never kill the chipmunks;
And, I think, his cousins here,
Though no God has ever stroked them,
Would be grateful if you left them
Playing 'mid the scarlet maples
Of your Pennsylvanian woods.