The Great Sphinx, G. Lékégian & Co.

THE STORY OF CRUEL PSAMTEK

HERE is cruel Psamtek, see.
Such a wicked boy was he!
Chased the ibis round about,
Plucked its longest feathers out,
Stamped upon the sacred scarab
Like an unbelieving Arab,
Put the dog and cat to pain,
Making them to howl again.
Only think what he would do –
Tease the awful Apis too
Basking by the sacred Nile
Lay the trusting crocodile ;
Cruel Psamtek crept around him,
Laughed to think how he had found him,
With his pincers seized his tail,
Made the holy one to wail ;
Till a priest of Isis came,
Called the wicked boy by name,
Shut him in a pyramid,
Where his punishment was hid.
– But the crocodile the while
Bore the pincers up the Nile –
Here the scribe who taught him
And respect for all his betters,
Gave him many a heavy task,
Horrid medicines from a flask,
While on bread and water, too,
Bitter penance must he do.

The Crocodile is blythe and gay,
With friends and family at play,
And cries, “O blessed Land of Nile,
Where sacred is the crocodile,
Where no ill deed unpunished goes,
And man himself rewards our foes !”

Anonymous.

Excerpt from Carolyn Wells, editor, A Nonsense Anthology (N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903). pp. 225-226.