I’ve been doing bad verse for a very long time, though every once in a while I manage to knock out a half decent one. Obviously the following is not one of them. In fact I may have written this thing for a high school English class. I memorized it, and I believe I even recited it for that class, a poor suffering lot. Having gained a bit more sophistication since then, admittedly not much, I changed the Knight’s name from Sir Crazy to what you see here, and Knight’s Hall of Fame to Night’s. Darkness besets us all. There were also minor changes which probably don’t improve anything. If you can’t get all the way through it, I understand, but it’s stuck in my mind and now it’s stuck here.
Verse: Mock Epic Romance
“Sir Whiskey the Fifth”
There was a knight in the days of old
Who was always half-looped, so the story is told.
Honest Sir Whiskey the Fifth was his name;
His armor made the Night’s Hall of Fame!
Now what did he do, you peasants may ask?
He killed ten shots from a highball glass!
With a souped-up horse who lived on straight scotch,
Outran any dragon, was always top notch!
One day there came a dispatch to his far and mighty realm;
‘Twas nailed upon an oak tree, for they couldn’t find an elm.
It called for any brave man to venture off afar
To kill a mean old dragon who lingered here and thar!
Well, off rode Sir Whisky on his souped-up horse,
Out through the palace gates, a splendid show of force!
He searched the hills and he searched the dales;
For a sign of the dragon he braved fierce gales!
When he finally found him in a dark and smelly cave,
The dragon roared, and pitched and shouted, ‘twas really in a rave!
As Sir Whisky was tight, he could hardly see;
He dashed right in to the dragon’s own lee!*
When the dragon said, “Now!” the combat began,
Sir Whisky, the dragon, both man to man.**
Well, the dragon went first, twas torn out his liver;
Sir Whisky went last, his heart wouldn’t quiver!
Now the moral of this story, though not in plain sight,
Is: don’t fight a dragon when you are half tight!***
*lee = his protecting shelter. I had to check it out too.
**”man to man” The dragon had upward yearnings and desires.
***In the good old days stories always had morals and were often used to educate the young.
Author:
Bottom Half-Shot,
Doubledour and
Sometime Square of the Night
As for the minor changes, I went through the verse again and changed most of them back to the original. I had misremembered some and then found that the memory of the originals that I had changed were actually better. Not everything, I’ve discovered, is improved by change.
I remember that I recited it in a college class I taught once at Ohio University. The reason why mostly eludes me, though I think it might have been due to the fact that a senior faculty member was sitting in on my class to evaluate my teaching. My youthful panache was showing.
Image: Edward Gorey: dragon and man exchange gifts.
