BEASTLY TALES

THE RECITATION

Oswald Peabody loved to give out a recitation,
Quite fond of his work, Requiem to a Nation.
Equally beloved, oh, what the heck!
The saga of how “the boy stood on the burning deck.”
Tennyson, Wordsworth, Byron and Keats,
He would recite any one of these as lunchtime treats.
The Ancient Mariner, he preferred at tea,
Reciting, “by the long grey beard and glittering e'e.”

Now, some would suggest this to be a bit of a bore!
Sometime sitting at meals, in itself was a chore.
Especially when they served Toad in the Hole,
Which was not renowned as a culinary goal.
Followed, for dessert, by some quite gooey stuff,
That went by the name of rose Plum Duff.
Under such circumstances a recitation was good.
A welcome distraction from quite stodgy food!
Now Peabody shouldn’t be thought a Peabrain,
His intellect surprised others, again and again.
“I’m old-fashioned in most of my ways,”
“But I’m still mentally alert, not in a daze.”

Should someone question his timbre or tone,
If she was female, she’d be called a silly old crone.
If, however, the critique giver proved to be male,
A good dressing down, he’d get, without fail!

One day he recited “The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill,”
An epic by Robert Service, designed to give consummate thrill,
An unusual ending this Ballad does take,
Especially for those now dining on steak.
For Bill’s frozen cadaver refused to thaw.
To fit into the coffin they had to use a saw!