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📜POEMS 📜
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The Lonely Lion

by Amos Russel Wells

The lion was lonely;
Said he, "There is only
One way of driving this gloom from me:
I must enter into society!"
So he asked the beasts in a manner quite hearty,
To come to his cave for a little party.
On the appointed day,
In a frightened way,
A parrot flew over his head to say
That the beasts would be happy the lion to greet,
But they very much feared he was out of meat!
"Alas!" the lion cried with a groan,
And must I then live forever alone?"
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Roar of the African Lion

by Isaac McLellan

This noble monarch of the Afric waste
Meets with no rival to contest his reign,
With his surpassing strength and agile stride
He can o'er come each creature of the plain.
He dashes to the earth the tall giraffe
Who towers above the summits of the woods;
He tracks the herds of shaggy buffaloes,
And slays the bull in solitudes;
He preys on nimble flocks of antelopes,
The pallah, oryx, quagga and wild-beest.
O'ertakes the blesbok in its swiftest flight,
On zebra and the eland makes his feast.
How grand, how thunderous his savage roar!
First he emits a dull, far-echoing moan
That ends at times with faintly-whispered sighs.
At other times he startles all the herds
With deep-toned roar and wild, tempestuous cries
That sudden sink away in muffled tone,
Like distant thunder fading in the skies.
His roar is loudest in cold, frosty nights
When two troops meet beside a fountain's flow;
Then each troop sounds a bold, defiant roar,
Each seeking to out-roar the rival foe.
Those grand, nocturnal concerts fill the waste
With universal terror, yet they thrill,
With transport the brave hunter's fearless heart,
Who lies there close ambush'd, resolute to kill;
A hunter in the glooms of forests hid,
In the dead hour of midnight, all alone;
Ensconced in thicket at the fountain's edge,
Listing the awful roar, or hollow moan.
The lions roar incessant in the night,
Their sighing moans beginning with the shades
Of evening; gather in the forest depths,
Sounding their warnings in the dim arcades
Thro' all the day they rest concealed in shade
Of gloomy forests on some mountain side,
Loving the jungles or the tangled grass
In low-lying shelves or in the valleys wide;
From thence they stalk, when ends the sunset glow,
Intent on nightly prowl for wandering foe,
Then in dark night their roar is full of ire,
Their eyeballs glowing like two balls of fire.
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The Lion and the Mouse

by Jeffreys Taylor

A lion with the heat oppressed,
One day composed himself to rest:
But while he dozed as he intended,
A mouse, his royal back ascended;
Nor thought of harm, as Aesop tells,
Mistaking him for someone else;
And travelled over him, and round him,
And might have left him as she found him
Had she not—tremble when you hear—
Tried to explore the monarch's ear!
Who straightway woke, with wrath immense,
And shook his head to cast her thence.
"You rascal, what are you about?"
Said he, when he had turned her out,
"I'll teach you soon," the lion said,
"To make a mouse-hole in my head!"
So saying, he prepared his foot
To crush the trembling tiny brute;
But she (the mouse) with tearful eye,
Implored the lion's clemency,
Who thought it best at last to give
His little prisoner a reprieve.
'Twas nearly twelve months after this,
The lion chanced his way to miss;
When pressing forward, heedless yet,
He got entangled in a net.
With dreadful rage, he stamped and tore,
And straight commenced a lordly roar;
When the poor mouse, who heard the noise,
Attended, for she knew his voice.
Then what the lion's utmost strength
Could not effect, she did at length;
With patient labor she applied
Her teeth, the network to divide;
And so at last forth issued he,
A lion, by a mouse set free.
Few are so small or weak, I guess,
But may assist us in distress,
Nor shall we ever, if we're wise,
The meanest, or the least despise.
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