THE WRATH OF ROYALTY
Leonis, King of the Jungle, was feeling low and jaded.
All the radiant colours of his inner rainbow faded
when Leonie de Lionesse, his good and faithful wife,
Regaled him with the details of the Insects' social life.
"In Lepidoptera Province they have held an event
Too dazzling to describe - simply everybody went"
Queen Leonie informed him. "Believe me dear i know,
For Daphne Mezereum, my maid, told me so."
"We are disinclined to listen to reports of Gadfly jollity,
Of meretricious Moths and their desperate frivolity,"
The King exclaimed, "however much Mezereum enthused,
You may take it from us, my dear, that weare not amused."
"We are no romping cub forever bent on play and mirth:
We are dignified and middle-aged and ample in the girth.
A Sovereign spends a serious life - and Queens should spend their days
At something quiet and sensible, like broderie anglaise."
The King prowled his palace's tessellated floors;
He eavesdropped conversations, listened at open doors.
What he heard displeased him: his courtiers, one and all,
Were gushing with the gossip of the Butterfly Ball.
His Majesty was miffed. In a sudden fit of pique
He made a slow safari to far-off Mozambique
By way of Milimanjaro, leaving his royal spoor
Between the sunlit snowcaps where the eagle used to soar.
Not a bird made wing through the equatorial sky,
But the King did not pause to stop and wonder why;
And several night elasped, devoid of Nightingalesong,
Before it slowly dawned on him that something was wrong.
Past Lake Tanganyika, where the water-wallowers steam
And the ripe, trampled pineapples so succulently gleam,
He glowered over Zambia, glared at the broad Zambesi;
And still he saw no birds. He grew restless and uneasy.
At length, in a clearing, Leonis chanced to see
A Hummingbird no bigger than a little Bumble-bee;
Sipping from a hibiscus, it dipped a delicate bill
Deep for delicious nectar, hovering bright and still.
"Lovely jewel of our crown," King Lion said,"please say:
Where are your great cousins, our noble birds of prey?
Where are our Goldfinch, our Gannet and our Swan?
Where have all the members of our feathered family gone?
"Sire," replied the Hummingbird, "I cannot tell a lie;
Every bird with big wings, of humble birth or high,
Has fled six thousand miles, to your kingdom's farthest part,
For the Party of Sir Percival de Proude Peacock, Bart"
Then almighty anger rent the cloudless heaven asunder
With deep-throated rancour as reverberative as thunder;
The scruffneck Hyaena stifled his cackling laugh
And voiceless ever after was the stilt-legged Giraffe.
"That nouveau riche colonial! That fappish popinjay!
How dare he have pretentions to be so distingue.
Diminishing our glory with base grandiloquence,"
Roared Leonis the Mighty, with rabid eloquence.
His growl filled the world; and then it came to pass
That Leonis leapt home through the swishing elephant-grass.
All his subjects trembled:would his tantrum abate
Before he reached his palace with its massive bronze gate?
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