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- When awful darkness and silence reign
- Over the great Gromboolian plain,
- Through the long, long wintry nights; --
- When the angry breakers roar
- As they beat on the rocky shore; --
- When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
- Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore: --
- Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
- There moves what seems a fiery spark,
- A lonely spark with silvery rays
- Piercing the coal-black night, --
- A Meteor strange and bright: --
- Hither and thither the vision strays,
- A single lurid light.
- Slowly it wander, -- pauses, -- creeps, --
- Anon it sparkles, -- flashes and leaps;
- And ever as onward it gleaming goes
- A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.
- And those who watch at that midnight hour
- From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
- Cry, as the wild light passes along, --
- "The Dong! -- the Dong!
- "The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
- "The Dong! the Dong!
- "The Dong with a luminous Nose!"
- Long years ago
- The Dong was happy and gay,
- Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
- Who came to those shores one day.
- For the Jumblies came in a sieve, they did, --
- Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
- Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
- And the rocks are smooth and gray.
- And all the woods and the valleys rang
- With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang, --
- "Far and few, far and few,
- Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
- Their heads are green, and the hands are blue
- And they went to sea in a sieve.
- Happily, happily passed those days!
- While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
- They danced in circlets all night long,
- To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
- In moonlight, shine, or shade.
- For day and night he was always there
- By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
- With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.
- Till the morning came of that hateful day
- When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,
- And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
- Gazing -- gazing for evermore, --
- Ever keeping his weary eyes on
- That pea-green sail on the far horizon, --
- Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
- As he sate all day on the grassy hill, --
- "Far and few, far and few,
- Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
- Their heads are green, and the hands are blue
- And they went to sea in a sieve.
- But when the sun was low in the West,
- The Dong arose and said;
- -- "What little sense I once possessed
- Has quite gone out of my head!" --
- And since that day he wanders still
- By lake and dorest, marsh and hills,
- Singing -- "O somewhere, in valley or plain
- "Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
- "For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
- "Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!"
- Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
- Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
- And because by night he could not see,
- He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
- On the flowery plain that grows.
- And he wove him a wondrous Nose, --
- A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
- Of vast proportions and painted red,
- And tied with cords to the back of his head.
- -- In a hollow rounded space it ended
- With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
- All fenced about
- With a bandage stout
- To prevent the wind from blowing it out; --
- And with holes all round to send the light,
- In gleaming rays on the dismal night.
- And now each night, and all night long,
- Over those plains still roams the Dong;
- And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe
- You may hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe
- While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
- To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
- Lonely and wild -- all night he goes, --
- The Dong with a luminous Nose!
- And all who watch at the midnight hour,
- From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
- Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
- Moving along through the dreary night, --
- "This is the hour when forth he goes,
- "The Dong with a luminous Nose!
- "Yonder -- over the plain he goes;
- "He goes!
- "He goes;
- "The Dong with a luminous Nose!"
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