The day is done, and the darkness

      Falls from the wing of night

      As ballast is wafted downward

      From an air-ship in its flight.

      I dream of a purple creature

      Which is not as kine are now;

      And resembles cattle only

      As Cowper resembles a cow.

      Such cows have power to quiet

      Our restless thoughts and rude;

      They come like the Benedictine

      That follows after food.

      Oh, Cow of rare rapturous vision,

      Oh, purple, impalpable Cow,

      Do you browse in a Dream Field Elysian,

      Are you purpling pleasantly now?

      By the side of wan waves do you languish?

      Or in the lithe lush of the grove?

      While vainly I search in my anguish,

      O Bovine of mauve!

      Despair in my bosom is sighing,

      Hope's star has sunk sadly to rest;

      Though cows of rare sorts I am buying,

      Not one breathes a balm to my breast.

      Oh, rapturous rose-crowned occasion,

      When I such a glory might see!

      But a cow of a purple persuasion

      I never would be.

      I'd love to see

      A Purple Cow,

      Oh, Goodness me!

      I'd love to see

      But not to be

      One. Anyhow,

      I'd love to see

      A Purple Cow.

      Now the joys of the road are chiefly these,

      A Purple Cow that no one sees,

      A grove of green and a sky of blue,

      And never a hope that cow to view.

      But a firm conviction deep in me

      That cow I would rather be than see.

      Though, alack-a-day, there be times enow,

      When I see pink snakes and a Purple Cow.

      Oh, what's the way to Arcady,

      Where all the cows are purple?

      Ah, woe is me! I never hope

      On such a sight my eyes to ope;

      But, as I sing in merry glee

      Along the road to Arcady,

      Perchance full soon I may espy

      A Purple Cow come dancing by.

      Heigho! I then shall see one.

      Her horns bedecked with ribbons gay,

      And garlanded with rosy may,—

      A tricksy sight. Still I must say

      I'd rather see than be one.

      In winter I get up at night

      And hunt that cow by lantern light;

      In summer quite the other way,

      I seek a Purple Cow by day.

      And does it not seem strange to you,

      I can't find cows of purple hue?

      But I can tell you, anyhow,

      I'm glad I'm not a Purple Cow.

      In the old ten-acre pasture,

      Lookin' eastward toward a tree,

      There's a Purple Cow a-settin'

      And I know she thinks of me.

      For the wind is in the gum-tree,

      And the hay is in the mow,

      And the cow-bells are a-calling

      "Come and see a Purple Cow!"

      But I am not going now,

      Not at present, anyhow,

      For I am not fond of purple, and

      I can't abide a cow;

      No, I shall not go to-day,

      Where the Purple Cattle play,

      Though I think I'd rather see one

      Than to be one, anyhow.

      Children, observe the Purple Cow,

      You cannot see her, anyhow;

      And, little ones, you need not hope

      Your eyes will e'er attain such scope.

      But if you ever have a choice

      To be, or see, lift up your voice

      And choose to see. For surely you

      Don't want to browse around and moo.

      Once a man said,

      I never saw a Purple Cow;

      Again he spoke,

      I never hope to see one.

      Then all the people said,

      How noble his humble-mindedness!

      How glorious his meek resignation!

      Now this is the strange part—

      The man has seen hundreds of purple cows,

      Ay, thousands,

      But the man was color blind,

      And the cows seemed to him to be a reddish brown.

      The blessed Purple Cow leaned out

      From a pasture lot at even

      One horn was sixteen inches long,

      The other just eleven.

      She had a ruminative face,

      And the teeth in her head were seven.

      She gazed and listened, then she said

      (Less sad of speech than queer),

      "Nobody seems to notice me,

      None knows that I am here.

      And no one wishes to be me!"

      She wept. (I heard a tear.)

      Only in dim, drowsy depths of a

          dream