Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Humpty Dumpty revisited

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
The wall was high, and he could see
From there the top of every tree,
Observing as the leaves would turn
From green to gold, and some would burn
With orange or with scarlet hue,
And Humpty Dumpty saw that, too.
And looking down on gold and red
And orange, Humpty Dumpty said,
"Atop the wall's the place to be!
I've never seen as now I see!
From this my perch above the town,
What man or horse could talk me down?
For Humpty Dumpty is my name,
The Sitter o'er the Sea of Flame,
And I intend to see it all
And stay till the last day of fall."

The king was not amused by this.
(In point of fact, the wall was his.)
He called his men and told them all
To "get that Humpty off my wall!"
A constable was sent to shout
At Humpty and to chew him out.
"Look here!" he yelled from down below.
"You're not above the law, you know!"
But Humpty said he was above it,
And the constable could shove it.
So then His Highness  sent the judge,
But Humpty Dumpty wouldn't budge.
The sheriff and the bailiff came,
But Humpty's answer was the same.
And last of all he sent the may'r,
But Humpty Dumpty didn't care.
He, unrepentant, told him that
He meant to sit, and there he sat.
At last the king could but relent:
Not one more man or horse was sent,
And Humpty Dumpty after all
Was left alone to watch the fall.

And it was great. He saw the trees.
He felt the brisk and biting breeze.
He watched the maple seeds a-twirling
And the squirrels at their squirreling.
He sat and sat and watched it all
And stayed till the last day of fall,
Till winter came and brought the snows
And cold, and Humpty Dumpty froze.

And no one ever knew the reason
Why he'd stayed there all that season.

3 comments:

William Wright (WW) said...

What a great fall for Humpty.

That was really good. And of course a frozen egg cracks just as well sitting on top of a wall, as a non-frozen one does falling off one, so the end result is the same.

NLR said...

That was good, a clever twist on a great fall

Ben Pratt said...

Very well done! You make writing poetry look over easy.

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