Virile, slime-backed bull of tropic palms,
Prurient passions rising to your throat,
Ange Adorable asks holy alms,
Demands no quiver in her lover's croak.
She understands her perfume, peril scent
Fires a feud between your loins of rage,
And tadpole instincts pilgrims must repent
To duel the shrieking Frenchman of the cave.
He listens for a lovesong filled with lust,
Indulging in the Sun's insistent taste
For plumper, braver grenouille to suck.
Still, cramming your heroic lungs in haste,
And climbing to her moonlit canopy,
You blast your Aria 'neath her balcony.
This sonnet was written based on the description of the frog Physalaemus in Central America by Diane Ackerman in her beautiful book "The Natural History of the Senses". There should be accent marks on Ange Adorable and grenouille. Ange Adorable is the aria from the balcony scene in the opera Romeo and Juliet.
The "shrieking Frenchman" is the bat that preys upon this frog. As the French eat frogs, and Paris is Romeo's rival, I borrowed this image for the sonnet. The form is a Shakespearean sonnet, for what else should it be?
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