DREAMT it! such a funny

thing

And now it's taken wing:

I s'pose no man before or

since

Dreamt such a funny thing.

It had a monkey—in a trap—

Suspended by the tail:

Oh! but that monkey look'd distress'd,

And his countenance was pale.

And he had danced and dangled there;

Till he grew very mad:

For his tail it was a handsome tail

And the trap had pinch'd it—bad.

The trapper sat below, and grinn'd;

His victim's wrath wax'd hot:—

He bit his tail—and fell—and kill'd

The trapper on the spot:—

It had a pig—a stately pig;

With curly tail and quaint:

And the Great Mogul had hold of that

Till he was like to faint.

So twenty thousand Chinamen;

With three tails each at least:

Came up to help the Great Mogul

And took him round the waist.

And so, the tail slipp'd through his hands;

And so it came to pass;

That twenty thousand Chinamen

Sat down upon the grass:—

It had a Khan—a Tartar Khan—

With tail superb, I wis:

And that fell graceful down a back

Which was consider'd his.

And so, all sorts of boys that were

Accursed, swung by it:

Till he grew savage in his mind

And vex'd, above a bit—

And so, he swept his tail, as one

Awak'ning from a dream:

And those abominable ones

Flew off into the stream—

And so, they hobbled up and down,

Like many apples there:

Till they subsided—and became

Amongst the things that were:—

And so it had a moral too;

That would be bad to lose:

"Whoever takes a tail in hand

Should mind his p's and queues."

I dreamt it!—such a funny thing!

And now it's taken wing;

I s'pose no man before or since

Dreamt such a funny thing!