Merlin's Legendary Lost Oaths
"My daughter! My daughter!" the old wizard cried
"Has angered the gods we should not have defied."
He rent at his garments until the sparks glowed
He rent at his garments until his skin showed
He shrieked and he wailed and he croaked like a toad
And wished many times that he'd already died.
"Your daughter was caught at a quarter to three"
She never appeared with my flagon of tea
Your rent must be paid or I'll show you the door
That no-one must open 'til quarter to four
And then you can visit your daughter NO MORE
Nor those she enraptures so amorously
The wizard, though wizened, still wasn't afraid
Though he knew that a terrible price would be paid
To quarantine those who, with bellicose voice
Would quarter the globe and deprive it of choice
Obliging all judges to call themselves 'Joyce'
And drown the convicted in warm lemonade
The rector inspected the wizard's slight frame
And decided the wizard was just not the same
He summoned the butler and ordered some tea
He summoned a pope from the holiest see
He ordered twelve woodnymphs, in batches of three
To gather up kindling and set it aflame
The brazier was blazing (I've said this before)
(and I'll tell you again, though I know it's a bore)
It cast darting shadows all over the walls
The crackle of flame echoed loud through the halls
The wizard emitted six brief caterwauls
When a thunderous knocking was heard at the door
"Your holiness!" Slowly but wholly in awe
Of whatever it was that he thought that he saw
The rector inclined to an angle acute
And adopted the pose clerics use in dispute
(Explaining the curious cut of their suit)
As, slowly, he started to settle the score
"That's four for the foreman, fourteen for the choir
And seventeen more for those souls who aspire
To cleave to the path and to spurn the black arts
And hide all the horror that lives in their hearts
Here's twenty for each of my favourite tarts
That visit me nightly to quench my desire
Despite all his fright he was quite self-possesed
And soon he'd departed for five hours' rest
Forgetting the wizard, still chained to a chair
Awaiting his child in the heights of despair
Completely ignoring the state of his hair
This was surely a terrible, terrible test
"Oh Daughter!" His daughter appeared in the frame
And vainly endeavoured to clear her good name
She claimed that the tea-bell had only half rung
And that at the hour when the Matins was sung
But as she protested, the door was wide flung
A little too late for this stage of the game
"Great Scott! Tell me, what is this clot doing here?"
What happened to Joseph of Arimathea?
I shouldn't have trusted the Pope with the spell
I've told him twelve times he must not use the bell
The book, or the candle; and howling of Hell
Will greet him if he's spilled a drop of my beer
| Contributors: | TG, P, Roland. |
| Poem finished: | 31st December 1999. |