There is a lion its name is lion and lion lion is its name.
Rose began to cry.
Just try
Not to make Rose cry
Just try.
That is what Willie said to the lion
When he gave Rose the lion
His lion.
Oh yes his lion.
Well there was more to it than that.
When Rose knew about a lion his lion Willie’s lion she remembered her dog Love. He was clipped like a lion but it was not that. It was when Love was only three months old and had never seen a lion.
Love was not a barker, he neither barked nor bit and when he was three months old he never had barked.
They began to be worried lest he could not bark, like children who will not talk. Well anyway.
One day Rose and her father Bob and her mother Kate and her grandmother Lucy and her uncle William were out riding and little Love was with them. Love had a pink nose and bright blue eyes and lovely white hair. When he ate asparagus and he liked to eat asparagus his rosy nose turned red with pleasure, but he never barked, not even at a cat or at asparagus. And then that day suddenly that day he stood up he was astonished and he barked. What was he astonished at. There in the middle of the open country was a big truck and on the truck were cages and the sides were down and there they were lions tigers bears and monkeys and Love just could not stand it and he barked.
Rose was very young then quite young too young then to sing a song but she sang one all the same.
This was the song she sang.
How does Love know how wild they are
Wild and wild and wild they are
How does Love know who they are
When he never ever had seen them before.
And then she went on.
If a cat is in a cage
Does that make him rage.
If a dog is on a roof
Does that make him aloof
Or is there any proof
That he is a dog and on a roof.
And so
Oh
How could Love know
That wild animals were wild.
Wild animals yes wild.
Are they wild if they are wild,
If I am wild if you are wild
Are you wild oh are you wild
Rose began to cry.
She began to try
She began to deny
The wild animals could lie.
Lie quietly not die but just lie.
And then Rose once more began to sing.
I knew, she said, I knew I would sing
I wish, she said, I wish I knew
Why wild animals are wild.
Why are they wild why why,
Why are they wild oh why,
And once more Rose began to cry.
Love was asleep he knew he could bark,
So why stay awake to hear Rose cry and sing
And sing and cry. Why.
That is what Love said.
Why.
And then later on when Love saw a wild animal he sometimes did anybody sometimes did, he did not bark he just turned his head away as much as to say, I did once but not again, wild animals are not interesting.
Love mostly barked in his sleep.
He dreamed.
And when he dreamed, he made a strangled bark,
Like anybody dreaming.
Love never said whether he liked to dream or not, but he did dream and when he dreamed he barked.
Rose was thinking all about everything when she heard that her cousin Willie had a lion.