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TORTOISES
Suddenly seizing the ugly ankle as she stretches
out to walk,
Roaming over the sods,
Or, if it happen to show, at her pointed, heavy tail
Beneath the low-dropping back-board of her shell.
Their two shells like doomed boats bumping,
Hers huge, his small;
Their splay feet rambling and rowing like
paddles,
And stumbling mixed up in one another,
In the race of love—
Two tortoises,
She huge, he small.
She seems earthily apathetic,
And he has a reptile's awful persistence.
I heard a woman pitying her, pitying the Mère
Tortue.
While I, I pity Monsieur.
"He pesters her and torments her," said the
woman.
How much more is he pestered and tormented,
say I.
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