Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond

Enjoyed yet grieved at more than others,

Were little ducklings in a pond,

Swimming about beside their mothers —

Small things like living water-lilies,

But yellow as the daffo-dillies.

“It’s very hard,” she used to moan,

“That other people have their ducklings

To grace their waters — mine alone

Have never any pretty chucklings.”

For why! — each little yellow navy

Went down — all downy — to old Davy!

She had a lake — a pond, I mean —

Its wave was rather thick than pearly —

She had two ducks, their napes were green —

She had a drake, his tail was curly —

Yet ‘spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,

No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!

The birds were both the best of mothers —

The nests had eggs — the eggs had luck —

The infant D’s came forth like others —

But there, alas! the matter stuck!

They might as well have all died addle

As die when they began to paddle!

For when, as native instinct taught her,

The mother set her brood afloat,

They sank ere long right under water,

Like any overloaded boat;

They were web-footed too to see,

As ducks and spiders ought to be!

No peccant humor in a gander

Brought havoc on her little folks —

No poaching cook — a frying pander

To appetite — destroyed their yolks —

Beneath her very eyes, Od rot ’em!

They went, like plummets, to the bottom.

The thing was strange — a contradiction

It seemed of nature and her works!

For little ducks, beyond conviction,

Should float without the help of corks:

Great Johnson, it bewildered him!

To hear of ducks th............