1 6 The Poets and Nature. 



gruous friendship of the gruesome beast with the pretty 

 little "zic-zac" plover. Moore has the following : 



The puny bird that dares with teasing hum 

 Within the crocodile's stretched jaws to come." 



Young has 



" Like the bird upon the banks of Nile, 

 That picks the teeth of the dire crocodile." 



and Spenser this : 



" Beside the fruitful shore of muddy Nile, 

 Upon a sunny bank outstretched lay 

 In monstrous length a mighty crocodile, 

 That, crammed with guiltless blood, greedy prey 

 Of wretched people travelling that way, 

 Thought all things less than his disdainful pride, 

 Soon came a little bird called tidula, 

 The least of thousands which on earth abide, 

 That forced this hideous beast to open wide 

 The grisly gates of his devouring hell, 

 And let him feed as nature doth provide 

 Upon his jaws that with black venom * swell. 

 Why then should greatest things the least disdain, 

 That so small so mighty can constrain?" 



It is probably only once in Keats, that crocodiles are an 

 incident of a pretty scene : 



"Onward the tiger and the leopard pants, 

 With Asian elephants : 



Onward these myriads with song and dance, 

 With zebras striped and sleek Arabians prance, 

 Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, 

 Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, 

 Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil 

 Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil : 

 With toying oars and silken sails they glide, 

 Nor care for wind and tide." 



The "low-roofed" Tortoise meets with but scanty com- 

 pliments from poets. There is an unexpected sympathy, 



* Query, " vermin." 



