‘You talk of snakes,’ said Jack the Rat,
‘But blow me, one hot summer,
I seen a thing that knocked me flat –
Fourteen foot long or more than that,
It was a reg’lar hummer!
Lay right along a sort of bog,
Just like a log!
‘The ugly thing was lyin’ there
And not a sign o’ movin’,
Give any man a nasty scare;
Seen nothin’ like it anywhere
Since I first started drovin’.
And yet it didn’t scare my dog.
Looked like a log!
‘I had to cross that bog, yer see,
And bluey I was humpin’;
But wonderin’ what that thing could be
A-lyin’ there in front o’ me
I didn’t feel like jumpin’.
Yet, though I shivered like a frog,
It seemed a log!
‘I takes a leap and lands right on
The back of that there whopper!’
He stopped. We waited. Then Big Mac
Remarked: ‘Well, then, what happened, Jack?’
‘Not much,’ said Jack, and drained his grog.
‘It was a log!’
(William Thomas Goodge)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Summer Poems, Sign & Symbol Poems, Dogs PoemsBased on Keywords: reg, jumpin, hummer, bluey, wonderin, a-lyin, drovin, humpin, whopper