160 SELECT POETRY

With winding ways, that will not fail
To accommodate your length of tail.”
(This fact the wily rogue concealing—
The fall had broken in his ceiling.)

“ Oh,” says the sanguine worm, “ I knew
That I might safely deal with you;”
Thus was the tenement transferred,
And that without another word.

Off went the snail in houseless plight ;
Alas! it proved a frosty night,
And ere a peep of morning light,
One wish supreme he found prevail ;
In all the world this foolish snail
Saw nothing he should like so well—
Which was—that he had got a shell.
But soon for this he ceased to sigh ;
A little duck came waddling by,
Who, having but a youthful bill,
Had ventured not so large a pill,
(E’en at imperious hunger’s call)
As this poor reptile, house and all;
But finding such a dainty bite
All ready to his appetite,
Down went the snail, whose last lament
Mourned his deserted tenement.
Meantime the worm had spent his strength
In vain attempts to curl his length
His small apartment's space about,
For head or tail must needs stick out,
Now, if this last was left, twas more
Exposed to danger than before,
And “ ’twould be vastly strange,” he said,
« To sit in-doors without one’s head.”—