Project Gutenberg's The Autobiography of a Monkey, by Albert Bigelow Paine

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Title: The Autobiography of a Monkey

Author: Albert Bigelow Paine

Illustrator: Hy. Mayer

Release Date: September 4, 2010 [EBook #33629]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MONKEY

[Illustration]

FOUND AND PICTURED BY HY. MAYER

VERSES BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

[Illustration]

NEW YORK R. H. RUSSELL

MDCCCXCVII

Copyright 1897
BY
ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL

[Illustration]

PART FIRST.

THE DEPARTURE FROM THE FOREST.

Where the light laughs in through the tree-tops
And sports with the tangled glade,
In the depths of an Afric forest
My earliest scenes were laid.

[Illustration]

In a bower that was merry with smilax
From the grimace of no-where, I woke
I was born on the first day of April
And they called me a jungle joke.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

And the voices of birds were about me--
And the beat and the flutter of wing;
While morning returned at the trumpet
Of Tusky, our elephant king.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

My nurse was a crooning old beldame
Who gazed in the palms of my hands
And vowed I was destined to travel
In many and marvellous lands.

[Illustration]

But little I heeded her croaking,
For I gamboled the whole day long,
And swung by my tail from the tree-top,
Or joined in the jungle song.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE SONG OF THE JUNGLE.

_The Elephant:_

Oh, I am the lord of the forest and plain!

_The Lion, Tigers, etc.:_

And we are the beasts that acknowledge your reign!

_The Birds:_

And we are the minstrels that come at your call!

_The Monkeys:_

And we are the jes