When I chanced the other Sunday With my Juliet to go thither And expounded Nature to her, Of the plants and beasts conversing, Showing the giraffes and cedars Of Mount Lebanon, the mighty Dromedary, the gold pheasants, And the zebra,--as we chatted It so happen’d that at length we Stood before the pit’s close railing Where the bears are all collected,-- Gracious heavens, what saw we there! An enormous desert-bear From Siberia, white and hairy, With a lady-bear was playing A too-tender game of love there. And the latter was our Mumma! Was the wife of Atta Troll! Well I knew her by the tender Humid glances of her eye. Yes, ’twas she! the South’s black daughter! She it was,--yes, Madame Mumma With a Russian is now living, With a Northern wild barbarian! With a simp’ring face a negro Who approach’d us, thus address’d me: “Is there any sight more pleasing “Than to see two lovers happy?” I replied: “Pray tell me whom, Sir, “I’ve the honour of addressing?” But the other cried with wonder: “Don’t you really recollect me? “Why, the Moorish prince am I “Who in Freiligrath was drumming; “Things in Germany went badly, “I was far too isolated. “Here, however, where as keeper I am station’d, where I’m living ’Mongst the lions, plants, and tigers Of my home within the tropics, “Here I find it much more pleasant Than your German fairs attending, Where I day by day was drumming And was fed so very badly. “I quite recently was married To a fair cook from Alsatia; When within her arms reposing Feel I then at home completely. “Her dear feet remind me closely Of our darling elephants; When she speaks in French, her language My black mother-tongue resembles. “Oft she scolds me, and I think then Of the rattling of that drum Which had skulls around it hanging; Snake and lion fled before it. “Yet with feeling in the moonlight Weeps she, like a crocodile Peeping from the tepid river To enjoy a little coolness. “And she gives me charming tit-bits, And I thrive upon them, eating Once again, as on the Niger, With old African enjoyment. “I am getting fat; my belly’s Grown quite round, and from my shirt it Is projecting, like a black moon From the snow-white clouds advancing.” CAPUT XXVII. (To Augustus Varnhagen Von Ense.) “Where in heaven, Master Louis, Did you pick up all this crazy Nonsense?”--these the very words were hich the Card’nal d’Este made use of. When he read the well-known poem Of Orlando’s frantic doings, Which politely Ariosto To his Eminence inscribed. Yes, my good old friend Varnhagen, Yes, I round thy lips see plainly Hov’ring those exact expressions, By the same sly smile attended.