‘Twas Brillig
No penguins had paraded yet,
We stood and watched the waiting crowd;
Your breath above the rainbow set,
For it was sunny-cold, and wet
With moisture shaken from the dewy clouds,
In little showers eager to impress
With all their mortal loveliness.
A leopard flashed like amber light,
A zebra cantered on;
The lion roared with rough delight
As squirrels squirted out of sight
Like lightly-startled fawn;
And monkeys stared in curious surprise
Through glass at people’s mirror-matching eyes.
At sea-lions we stopped at last,
You held my hand, your breath. Beneath
A dark and varnished glass, the vast
And lithesome shadows rippled past,
To gracefully unsheath,
From unthought, unknown, savage places
They burst, in joy, with wise and ancient faces.