Sunday 23 June 2013

'The Dong with a Luminous Nose'

'The Dong with a Luminous Nose', an illustration by JVL in The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape, 1984 and reissued in 2012.

Here are the first two verses:
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.

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