Explore "The Croaker" by Joseph C. Lincoln on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once, by the edge of a pleasant pool, / Under the bank, where 't was dark and cool, / Where bushes over the water hung, / And grasses nodded and rushes swung -- / Just where the brook flowed out of the bog -- / There lived a gouty and mean old Frog, / Who'd sit all day in the mud, and soak, / And do just nothing but croak and croak.
'Till a Blackbird whistled: "I say, you know, / What _is_ the trouble down there below? / Are you in sorrow, or pain, or what? " / The Frog said: "Mine is a gruesome lot! / Nothing but mud, and dirt, and slime, / For me to look at the livelong time. / 'Tis a dismal world! " so he sadly spoke, / And voiced his woes in a mournful croak.