Mephistopheles Perverted
(Or Goethe for the Times)
CE long ago lived a Flea Who kept such a fine, fat King, Not that he held with royalty, But more for the appearance of the thing, And gave his Majesty to hold (Such pageantries are far too few) A sword of ruby-hilted gold That possibly might hack a cheese in two; But lest this glory might begin To prove the regency too far, His thunderbolt they made of tin, And changed his godship for another Star. Thus when the Monarch drove abroad, With stars like buttons round his chest, God-fearing Fleas would all applaud, And alien Lice be grudgingly impressed. Such relics every Flea must flaunt, If only as the final trump That mocks Materialism's taunt, Proving there's more in life than Suck and Jump. Once long ago—but not so long— A King went curing scrofula . . . The chorus of this charming song, I'm told reliably, is Ha,
Ha,
Ha.
Kenneth Slessor
Other author posts
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ED of station, noise alone, The crow's voice trembles down the sky As if this nitrous flange of stone Wept suddenly with such a cry; As if the rock found lips to sigh, The riven earth a mouth to moan; But we that hear them, stumbling by, Confuse t...
Fixed Ideas
KS of electroplated cubes, dwindling to glitters, Like the other pasture, the trigonometry of marble, Death's candy-bed Stone caked on stone, Dry pyramids and racks of iron balls Life is observed, a precipitate of pellets, Or grammarians...
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NG on flags of ebony and pearl, My paladins are waiting Loops of smoke Stoop slowly from the coffee-cups, and curl In thin fantastic patterns down the room By cabinets of chinaware, to whirl With milky-blue tobacco-steam, and fume Together pa...
