Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 47

THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD

His caw is a cackle, his eye is dim,And he mopes all day on the lowest limb;Not a word says he, but he snaps his billAnd twitches his palsied head, as a quill,The ultimate plume of his pride and hope,Quits his now featherless nose-of-the-Pope,Leaving that eminence brown and bareExposed to the Prince of the Power of the Air.And he sits and he thinks: "I'm an old, old man,Mateless and chickless, the last of my clan,But I'd give the half of the days gone byTo perch once more on the branches high,And hear my great-grand-daddy's comical croaksIn authorized versions of Bulletin jokes."