Poetry+Zoo


 * [[image:monkeys.jpg width="400" height="266" align="left"]] At the Zoo **

First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black; Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back; Then I saw the grey wolf, with mutton in his maw; Then I saw the wombat waddle in the straw; Then I saw the elephant a-waving of his trunk; Then I saw the monkeys—mercy, how unpleasantly they smelt!
 * William Makepeace Thackeray**


 * At the Zoo [[image:baby_elephant.jpg width="411" height="512" align="right"]]**

There are lions and roaring tigers, and enormous camels and things, There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons, and a great big bear with wings. There's a sort of a tiny potamus, and a tiny nosserus too - But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!

There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers, and a Super-in-tendent's House, There are masses of goats, and a Polar, and different kinds of mouse, And I think there's a sort of a something which is called a wallaboo - But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!

If you try to talk to the bison, he never quite understands; You can't shake hands with a mingo - he doesn't like shaking hands. And lions and roaring tigers hate saying, "How do you do?" - But I give buns to the elephant when I go down to the Zoo!

**A.A. Milne**

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize thy fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And why thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors grasp? When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
 * [[image:tiger2.jpg width="650" height="552" align="left"]] The Tyger **


 * William Blake**

 Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him. Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus! We really look all right to us, As you no doubt delight the eye Of other hippopotami.
 * [[image:hippo.jpg align="right"]] THE HIPPOPOTAMUS **
 * Ogden Nash**

** THE TURTLE **

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile.
 * Ogden Nash**

** Leopards **

It's hard to see lions when they lie in the grass or deer among the trees where they've trotted. It's hard to see rabbits stood in a field, but leopards are always spotted.
 * Barry Buckingham**

Through the streaks of stalk and stem, through the strands of twine and twig, stripes are sliding.
 * [[image:eye_of_tiger.jpg align="left"]]Stripes through the Streaks **

Black through gold, gold through black, slanted strips through slatted slits, velvet limbs through woven looms, wild-cat stripes through wild-wood streaks are sliding... sidling.

**Kate Williams**