A Parrot, shipped across the sea
From Africa when young was he,
Became a lonely widow's pet.
The cage was by the window set;
And in the sun the passers-by
Could see the opal-jeweled eye,
The scarlet tail, the ebon beak
Thick-set against a whitish cheek,
And that magnificence of gray
On wing and back and breast, and they
Remarked, " It is a splendid dream,
A most successful color scheme.
O Psittacus erithacus,
We're glad to have you here with us. "
The widow, both from sense of duty.
And natural pride, baptized him " Beauty. "
I will not dwell on Beauty's feats:
The peanuts how he cracks and eats,
A perch and holding in his claw,
Then gargling them into his maw
With lifted head, beside the cup,
The widow's always filling up —
The way he waddles round the floor
When mistress opes his cage's door —
The words he speaks, so shrill and mystic,
And preternatur'ly linguistic —
I will not mention, for my aim
Is to expound his fateful name.

Ere many moons, there came o'er him
An itching in his every limb —
But whether caused by frequent bites
Of horrid little parasites,
Or by the harsh New England climate
(That ruins many a lusty Primate,
And hence might possibly nonplus
A tender, an oviparous,
A tropic bird), or by some particles
In wretchedly digested articles,
We have slight reason to suspect.
At any rate, he clawed and pecked
With all his passion, intellect,
And sinews of his bill and foot,
Upon his feathers to the root.
Now Beauty's tail was but a stump
That ill-concealed a tragic rump,
Now Beauty's wing-bones both were bare,
And ghastly purple was the skin
That held his bulging gullet in,
And in his eye a vacant stare;
And, as his remnants there he sunned,
Men saw that he was moribund.

MORAL

Don't call your bird or offspring by
A name his future may belie.