This poem is taken from PN Review 44, Volume 11 Number 6, July - August 1985.

The Frog's Return

John Heath-Stubbs

The frog came back - I mean that one, of course,
Who would go wooing (he was not Monsieur,
The French king's brother, the Duke of Alençon, though
Gloriana nicknamed him her frog, and he too had an
      unsuccessful courtship;
And he was not a brekkek-koaxing aristophanic
      marsh-frog,
But a fenland nightingale, a yellowbelly,
An honest English Rana temporaria,
And kin to Mr Jeremy Fisher).

This frog, I say, having evaded
Upon the lake the lilywhite duck - or was it a swimming
      snake? -
Returned, and landed with a loud splash of relief
Back in his native frog pond.

At the sound of that splash, the little blob-black tadpoles,
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