Edward Lear, Mt. Generoso, July 1882.
Amy Wilcockson and Edmund Downey have found a previously unknown poem by Edward Lear, dated 22 September 1882 and enclosed in a lettter to Mary Theresa Mundella (1847–1922), daughter of Liberal politician and friend to Lear, Anthony John Mundella (1825–1897). The poem is a lamentation about the number of tourists on Mount Generoso; the title is “Lays of the Octopods (The Last of the Octopods)” and this is the first of seven stanzas:
1
From Monte Generoso
When the leaves were turning brown
Five hundred thousand Octopods
All painfully came down
And on the back of every one
A Pofflikopp held fast,
And all their faces dark or fair
With sorrow were o’ercast.
You can read the rest on the Notes & Queries website.