 | A Summer Christmas and a Sonnet upon The S.S. "Ballaarat." |  |
The dam was of a crescent shape
With broad lagoons at either cape:
But in the middle just a thread
Of water filmed its muddy bed:
And here the angle of a fence
Gave a slight line of cover, whence
An ambushed gun might be close to
The mobs of ducks and swans which flew
In terror towards the top lagoon
When started from the lower one.
And here Will posted Phil and Hall
As really the best post of all,
Although he thought that visitors
Were likely to prefer the course
Which he himself proposed to take
Of stalking first the lower lake
And then the upper, where they could
See all the wildfowl-brotherhood
Wading or floating on the mere
And starting up as they drew near.
With broad lagoons at either cape:
But in the middle just a thread
Of water filmed its muddy bed:
And here the angle of a fence
Gave a slight line of cover, whence
An ambushed gun might be close to
The mobs of ducks and swans which flew
In terror towards the top lagoon
When started from the lower one.
And here Will posted Phil and Hall
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Although he thought that visitors
Were likely to prefer the course
Which he himself proposed to take
Of stalking first the lower lake
And then the upper, where they could
See all the wildfowl-brotherhood
Wading or floating on the mere
And starting up as they drew near.
Will had arranged that Kit should go
With Phil and Hall knowing that so
She would have better sport, which she
Loved fully as devotedly
As any gaitered gentleman
Upon the Twelfth of August can.
But she refused to, from a fear
That Phil might prove sole cavalier.
With Phil and Hall knowing that so
She would have better sport, which she
Loved fully as devotedly
As any gaitered gentleman
Upon the Twelfth of August can.
But she refused to, from a fear
That Phil might prove sole cavalier.
The party, who were left to stalk,
After a minute's stealthy walk
Over the low ridge of a hill,
Burst on a spectacle to fill
The least enthusiastic mind
With rapture. The whole dam was lined
With teal and divers, geese and swans
And avocets and pelicans,
With ducks of half the species known
To colonists, ‘musk’ ‘black’ and ‘brown,’
Wood-ducks and mountain-ducks galore,
Blue-wings and full a dozen more,
With gulls and plovers on the shore
And snippets at the water-edge,
And bitterns rising from the sedge.
As soon as they had topped the crest
A swan, the sentry for the rest,
Gave the alarm with one long note,
Which still was ringing in his throat,
When swish in one immense efflux
Arose innumerable ducks
Leaving just stray ones here and there
For the gun-barrels brought to bear
With instant swiftness on the spot,
Where they had swam, with hail of shot.
Kit bagged a brace of black-duck, Will
Who hardly ever failed to kill
A leash, and the Professor, who
Missed with his first, with number two
Brought down a swan so far that it
Seemed quite impossible to Kit,
While Chesterfield had the good-luck
To find a diplomatic duck,
Who'd rather take its chance and stay
Among the reeds than fly away.
After a minute's stealthy walk
Over the low ridge of a hill,
Burst on a spectacle to fill
The least enthusiastic mind
With rapture. The whole dam was lined
With teal and divers, geese and swans
And avocets and pelicans,
With ducks of half the species known
To colonists, ‘musk’ ‘black’ and ‘brown,’
Wood-ducks and mountain-ducks galore,
Blue-wings and full a dozen more,
With gulls and plovers on the shore
And snippets at the water-edge,
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As soon as they had topped the crest
A swan, the sentry for the rest,
Gave the alarm with one long note,
Which still was ringing in his throat,
When swish in one immense efflux
Arose innumerable ducks
Leaving just stray ones here and there
For the gun-barrels brought to bear
With instant swiftness on the spot,
Where they had swam, with hail of shot.
Kit bagged a brace of black-duck, Will
Who hardly ever failed to kill
A leash, and the Professor, who
Missed with his first, with number two
Brought down a swan so far that it
Seemed quite impossible to Kit,
While Chesterfield had the good-luck
To find a diplomatic duck,
Who'd rather take its chance and stay
Among the reeds than fly away.
| A Summer Christmas and a Sonnet upon The S.S. "Ballaarat." | |