Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day
You sing the rhyme that drives the rain away;
And from your window mourn the patient trees
Buffeted by the peevish Hyades.
Come, let us shut the lattice, do you slide
From your old Ark the gaudy-painted side
And let the enlargèd captives walk about;
For though a deluge be at work without,
Secure within we’ve no concern for that,
And all the nursery is Ararat.
Not on the rug,—a space of oaken boards
A firmer footing for the crew affords:
Softly, my Betsey, lest your fervour harm
The extreme frailness of a leg or arm—
Poor limbs, so often and so rudely tossed
And rattled down, no wonder some be lost
Beyond the aid of glue! What skill did cram
Into the hold vermilion-hatted Ham
And Shem with the green top-knot and the slim
Contours of Japheth, Noah (somewhat grim
With buttons) and his consort after him!
The wives are at the bottom, dear, but now
Come the black pig and terra-cotta cow,
Three foxes, this a purple collar round
His rigid neck proclaims the faithful hound;
The birds are not so nice, tradition fails
To account for such a quantity of quails,
But the old weary crow that flew and flew
Away from Noah has come back for you.
Where is the dove? For if my memory speak
The truth there _was_ a dove and in his beak
The olive leaves he plucked upon the day
When, as you know, the waters ebbed away;
Who perched on Noah’s window with pink feet,
And without whom no Ark is thought complete.
Where is the missing dove? For now I see,
Standing or prone the whole menagerie,
And the rain’s stopped without and all above
Beams the benignant sky; and still no dove,
Of the same beautiful fact the feathered proof!
Why here—upon the ripples of the roof—
Here is your truant painted, to abide
When Shem and Ham are scattered far and wide,
And all the beasts are broke, to brood with furled
Pacific wings over the new-washed world.