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| INTRODUCTION
Camille St. Seans was racked with pains
When people addressed him as "Saint
Sains,"
He held the human race to blame
Because it could not pronounce his name.
So he turned with metronome and
fife
To glorify other forms of life.
Be quiet, please, for here begins
His salute to feathers, furs and fins.
ROYAL MARCH OF THE LIONS
The lion is the king of beasts
and husband of the lioness.
Gazelles and things on which he feasts
Address him as Your Hioness.
There are those who admire that roar
of his
In the African jungles and veldts
But I think wherever a lion is
I'd rather be somewhere else.
COCKS AND HENS
The rooster is a roistering hoodlum,
His battle-cry is cock-a-doodlum,
Hands in pockets, cap over eye,
He whistles at pullets passing by.
WILD JACKASS
Have you ever harked to the jackass
wild
Which scientists call the onager?
It sounds like the laugh of an idiot
child,
Or a hapcat on a harmoniger.
But do not sneer at the jackass wild,
There is method in his hee-haw,
For with maidenly blush and accent mild
The jenny-ass answers, shee-haw.
TURTLES
Come crown my brow with leaves of myrtle
I know the tortoise is a turtle.
Come carve my name in stone immortal,
I know the turtoise is a tortle.
I know to my profound despair
I bet on one to beat a hare.
I also know I'm now a pauper
Because of its tortley turtley torpor.
ELEPHANTS
Elephants are useful friends
Equipped with handles at both ends
The have a wrinkled, moth-proof hide,
Their teeth are upside down, outside.
If you think the elephant preposterous
You've probably never seen a rhinosterous.
KANGAROOS
The kangaroo can jump incredible.
He has to jump, because he's edible.
I could not eat a kangaroo,
But many fine Australians do.
Those with cookbooks as well as boomerangs
Prefer him in tasty kangaroo meringues.
THE AQUARIUM
Some fish are minnows,
Some are whales,
People like dimples,
Fish like scales.
Some fish are slim,
And some are round,
The don't get cold,
The don't get drowned.
But every fish wife
Fears for her fish.
What we call mermaids,
They call merfish
THE MULES
In the world of mules
There are no rules,
THE CUCKOO IN THE WOODS
Cuckoos lead Bohemian lives,
They fail as husbands and as wives,
Therefore they cynically disparage
Everybody else's marriage
THE BIRDS
Puccini was Latin, and Wagner Teutonic,
And birds are incurably philharmonic.
Suburban yards and rural vistas
Are filled with avian Andrews sisters.
The skylark sings a roundelay,
the crow sings The Road to Mandalay,
The nightingale sings a lullaby
And the seagull sings a gullaby.
That's what shepherds listened to in
Arcadia
Before somebody invented the radia.
THE PIANISTS
Some claim that pianists are human,
And quote the case of Mr. Truman.
St. Saens, upon the other hand,
Considered them a scurvy band.
Ape-like they are, he said, and simian,
instead of normal men and wimian.
THE FOSSILS
At midnight in the museum hall
The fossils gathered for a ball.
There were no drums or saxophones
But just the clatter of their bones.
A rolling, rattling, carefree circus
of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
Amid this mastodonic wassail
I caught the eye of one small fossil.
Cheer up, sad world, he said, and winked-
It's kind of fun to be extinct.
THE SWAN
The swan can swim while sitting down.
For pure conceit he takes the crown.
He looks in the mirror over and over,
And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.
GRAND FINALE
Now we reach the grand finale,
Animale, carnivale.
Noises new to sea and land
issue form the skilful band.
All the strings contort their features
Imitating crawly creatures,
All the brasses look like mumps
From blowing umpah umpah umps.
In out-doing Barnum and Baily and Ringling
St Saens has done a miraculous thingling.
By Ogden Nash. To
be recited to the music by St. Seans.
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