To a Hippopotamus

Lines written in dejection on seeing a River-horse.
A FRAGMENT

Beast, that waddlest in the ooze
Where Mid-Afric rivers lose
Sight of the sheer hills they left
In silvery leaps from cleft to cleft,
But not yet with gathering roll
Have espied their final goal —
That great sea which we and they
Must be mingled with some day —
Beast, that, in this midway slime,
Passest a primaeval time.
Say, what fancy did give birth
To thy super-monstrous girth?
Did the Devil think it well
To hoist thee up one day from hell.
So that the crystal streams might be
Churned with thy vast turbidity?
Or did he think — To stay a flood
This nightmare horse is very good.
Seeing that with his gulf-like mouth
He could drink ocean to a drouth?