defined
- Tortoise
- n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
- TO MY PET TORTOISE
- My friend, you are not graceful — not at all; Your gait’s between a stagger and a sprawl.
- Nor are you beautiful: your head’s a snake’s To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
- As to your feet, they’d make an angel weep. ’Tis true you take them in whene’er you sleep.
- No, you’re not pretty, but you have, I own, A certain firmness — mostly you’re [sic] backbone.
- Firmness and strength (you have a giant’s thews) Are virtues that the great know how to use —
- I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole, You lack — excuse my mentioning it — Soul.
- So, to be candid, unreserved and true, I’d rather you were I than I were you.
- Perhaps, however, in a time to be, When Man’s extinct, a better world may see
- Your progeny in power and control, Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
- So I salute you as a reptile grand Predestined to regenerate the land.
- Father of Possibilities, O deign To accept the homage of a dying reign!
- In the far region of the unforeknown I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
- I see an Emperor his head withdraw Into his carapace for fear of Law;
- A King who carries something else than fat, Howe’er acceptably he carries that;
- A President not strenuously bent On punishment of audible dissent —
- Who never shot (it were a vain attack) An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
- Subject and citizens that feel no need To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
- All progress slow, contemplative, sedate, And “Take your time” the word, in Church and State.
- O Tortoise, ’tis a happy, happy dream, My glorious testudinous regime!
- I wish in Eden you’d brought this about By slouching in and chasing Adam out.