Stay, traveller, and rest a while, I beg
To contemplate the mystery of the egg.
Within this cask of bone resides the sum
Of all that’s been and all that’s yet to come.
Linger awhile, that you and I may share
Nor fish nor fowl but something passing rare.
And join my modest muse, extolling thus
The albino, arctic duck-billed platypus;
Where once stout Phoebus and his lusty train
Were rudely routed from the blasted plain
There, phoenix-like, the platypus arose
And gaily sported mid the growling floes
To rear her brood and serve her mortal span
In chill crevasses measureless to Man
Whom Providence has rendered at the last
Impervious to the Hyperborean blast,
The eager whelps, their fragile prison rent
At once go forth in search of aliment.
Creation now a further wonder works;
The dam has dugs.
The brats wear milky smirks.
Yet some there be who brave the Arctic squall
In whom the thirst for knowledge conquers all.
My pen is still.
My beating heart unmanned;
My spirit quails before the hardy band
That scorns the perils of that dreadful land –
The ravening beasts which lour on every hand
The chafing wind that scours the arctic strand
To bear in triumph homeward by their toils
This peerless paragon of oval spoils.
Such marvels hath the Modern Ajax wrought,
Their magnitude the Mind can scarce support.
Behold! Before our disbelieving eyes
The seamless vessel parts - and yields its prize...
Lou Glandfield 2014
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