Once upon a midnight clear, while I sat there, drinking beer,
Reading a quaint and curious volume of fictitious lore,
While I stupored, nearly napping, suddenly I heard a trap beat,
Along with such horrible rapping, rapping outside my bedroom door.
“‘Tis a rapper,” I muttered, “rapping outside my bedroom door –
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember cooking stew in late November,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – that igloo stew filled me with sorrow
From a book I sought to borrow – reprieve from indigestion –
From the rare and radiant pains of self-inflicted indigestion –
My irritation was beyond question.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Annoyed me – deployed in me anger never felt before;
So that now, for the sake of my blood pressure, I stood repeating,
“‘Tis the pizza delivery man entreating entrance at my bedroom door –
Some pizza delivery man entreating entrance at my bedroom door; –
Bringing pies from the pizza store.”

Presently my soul grew stronger;
Hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is that I cannot tip,
Because of my relationship,
And so this house you may surely skip,
And thus pray stop the tapping,
Tapping on my bedroom door,
And leave me to my beer” –
Here I opened wide the door; –
Crickets there and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, steaming,
Doubting, fuming as no mortal has ever feigned to fume before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken were curses I won’t restore.
These I grumbled to the void and the echoes did restore.
Merely these, and nothing more.

Back into my bedroom turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somehow more annoying than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely there is someone at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, who thereat is and this mystery uncover –
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery uncover; –
So I may rest and pray recover”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and stutter,
In there stomped a baby hippopotamus of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he;
Not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, climbed above my chamber door –
Climbed upon the trophy case just above my bedroom door –
Climbed, and sent my favorite trophy tumbling to the floor.

Then, this baby hippo beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said,
“Art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient hippo stomping around on the nightly shore –
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly hippo
To hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning –
Little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing a hippo above his bedroom door –
Hippo or beast upon the trophy case above his bedroom door,
With such a name as “Dumbledore.”
But the hippo, sitting lonely on the placid case, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a single syllable stuttered –
Till I scarcely more than muttered, “other friends have come before –
On the morrow he will leave me, as my sanity has done before.”
Then the hippo said, “Dumbledore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some bearded headmaster whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore –
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Dumble – Dumbledore.’”

But the Hippo still beguiling all my fancy to smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of hippo, case, and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous hippo of yore –
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt
And ominous hippo of yore
Meant in croaking “Dumbledore.”

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the hippo whose fiery eyes now burned into my *****’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser,
Perfumed from an unseen censer
The television showed my favorite team
Now losing as I glimpsed the score.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee –
By these angels he hath sent thee
Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy
Memories of this score!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and
Forget this evil score!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! –
Prophet still, if hippo or devil! –
Whether Tempter sent, or whether
Tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert
Land enchanted –
On this home by horror haunted – tell me
Truly, I implore –
Is there – is there pizza in Heaven? – tell
Me – tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil – prophet
Still, if hippo or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by
That God we both adore –
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within
The distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted pizza whom the
Angels did procure –
Clasp a rare and radiant pizza whom the
Angels did procure.”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Be that word our sign in parting, hippo or
Fiend,” I shrieked, upstarting –
“Get thee back into the tempest and the
Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no mark of dirt as a token of that lie thy
Soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the case
Above my door!
Take thy jaws from out my heart, and take thy
Form from off my door!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

And the Hippo, never flitting, still is sitting,
Still is sitting
On the broken case of trophies just above my
Chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s
That is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws
His shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies
Floating on the floor
May only be lifted by Dumbledore!

Mr. Hippo, you are 3,000 pounds. How is it that you are able to swim? Tell me, Mr. Hippo. Your legs are so short that your belly drags against the ground. Your head is huge, and your body is intensely round. Yet you are able to stay afloat and not drown. How is it that you are buoyant? And how is it that those stubby legs of yours can propel you forward in water?

Mr. Hippo, I hear you can run up to 30 mph on land. *******. You don’t even need to run. You’re regarded as the most dangerous animal in Africa. I hear you can snap a crocodile in two with one bite. What do you eat, Mr. Hippo, to get that big? I hear you only eat grass and you don’t really fight. Yet you have those giant teeth that lions do not ***** with.

Mr. Hippo, you’re that dangerous and feared, but still in a good enough mood to wiggle your ears. And maintain such shinny Hippo skin. It is for all these reasons that I would like to have you as a pet, Mr. Hippo. I’d walk you down the street and show you off to all the neighbors and let them gossip. You could swim in their pools and feed on their blossoms. You could stop their cars in their tracks and their yards, you could cross them. They will say, “Mr. Antonio, you are strange.” But it will cost them. Because later they will say, “Mr. Antonio, we are sorry. Mr. Hippo, you are awesome.”

A gray hippopotamus lived in a zoo
At the end of the Tropical Line,
Harry the Hippo lived next to the loo
Right by the Northern confines.
With his wide toothy smile,
And his great double chin,
He greeted his neighbors
With a great hippo grin...
Made friends with the deer,
Made friends with an owl,
Avoided the white scowling bear,
Avoided the family of wolves,
(He'd heard they liked to eat meat).
Decided to friend a great, walloping moose,
A challenge, his neighbor seemed rather elite.
Tall and severe with a beard on his chin,
He stood like a tree on his heavy brown hooves,
And branches of antlers stood heavy and grim.

"I see we are neighbors,"said Harry the Hippo,
"Name's Harry," he said with a grin,
"Since it looks like we'll be here a while, ya' know,
I figure we ought to be friends!"

"Bull" Moose only chewed a bit more on his cud,
Burped in the gray hippo's face,
Turned his wide antlers for well and for good...
He spurned the whole hippo race.

But Harry had patience,
Had nowhere to go,
So he waited a week and a month and a day
For Otto the Moose to come 'round,
And he did! And now the two of 'em play.

Our Harry's advice to you is be nice,
And after a while, it comes true....
The balkiest neighbors will have to think twice
And fall into friendship with you.

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