'Conaria and Co.' by Walter Garstang

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Conaria And Co.

Conaria's an Actinula, Vellela's little daughter,
Reared by a Medusa nurse in dark abyssal water,
But Coney said, "This dismal den is no abode for me!
I mean to rise, ev'n if I have to float a company!"

Her stiff and useless larval arms she thereon cast away,
And sprouted zooids round her, some 3 or 4 a day;
These fed her well, perhaps exceeding normal Carid doses
(Or was it an 'unsteady state' in the rate of her osmosis?)

In any case, whate'er the cause, some gas got in her float,
And things began to happen which it scared them all to note:
Familiar phosphorescent glows went down or faded dimmer,
It seemed less cold, and now and then faint light above would glimmer;

Strange creatures sank, but Coney's stock was clearly on the rise,
And soaring - through the Photic Zone - until with glad surprise
Day changed to night, and night to day, and with a shock the more
They broke the waving surface as a blue Siphonophore!

With an air-filled float and sail aslant upon a sparkling sea,
Conaria merged her little stock in Vellela, L.t.d.!

By Walter Garstang
From 'Larval forms, and other zoological verses'