Stuffed parrots and wild flowers

from Van Diemen's Land, four months

down holds of scudding ships,

which cousins, remember, sent and you

put under glass in your very own

painting room, where you, just like

your easel, were set up, with not

the least idea of venturings — that ear

drum of a whale from dear, dear Charles

on the chimney piece with purpose only

to confound, provide after-dinner jousts

of wit.

Engravings, your own paintings

up on the walls, bookcases smug

with well-heeled tomes, a crisp drawer

of shells, stern busts, your china, and even

the pelt of a thylacine.You had it made,

Louisa Anne, artist, scribbler, at home

among your curiosities, the Midlands great

outdoors all yours to go a-sketching in —

luxuriating, your word. One

disappointment, though: the nautilus shell

that didn't come, dear Uncle George!

who then, insensitive! invited you Down Under,

as governess to his brood!

Where would be

my literature? Sonnets to whales and porpoises!

Canzonets to kangaroos, madrigals to merinos!

Dirges to black swans!

And, oh dear, Mrs M,

did you say portraits of engaging

lovely natives there?

Was it terror of the shelf? Was it love

made you, against your mother's wish

(seventy years and in poor health), abandon Brum,

set out with the chap who'd parcelled up

that extraordinary bit of whale?