Saturday, September 22, 2012

education of a cad


once there was a maiden fair
 who spent her life in a morris chair 
and when she heard the clock strike three
 and saw it was still not time for tea
 she ran her fingers through her long red hair

 miss jocelyn jones had never been kissed
 so she became a satanist
 when she met the lord of the flies
 and listened to his lies
 his advances she did not resist

 prudence peters was detected
 disrespecting the family by whom she was protected
 and so they turned her out of doors
 amid the winter's harshest roars -
 with sin her path soon intersected

 *
but of all the melancholy tales
of trusting and betrayed females
 there are none so sweetly sad
 as of those whose who met a certain cad...

 the honorable charles st charles, of cheltenham and bath
 through the ladies cut a swath
like a louche latin or lustful turk
 he made of maidens much short work

 and filled the highways, roads and lanes
 with cast off kates and jilted janes
 of such behavior from a son
 of civilized christian albion

 what can one do but sigh?
and turn a chastened eye
 toward heaven's sorrowed gaze
 and hope and pray for better days...

 the honorable charles had his detractors
 who thought him the worst of malefactors
 but had his sympathizers too
who thought eve's daughters deserved their due

 of blame for tempting the poor lad
 spawn of a drunken sire and mother quite mad
 orphaned indeed before the age of ten
and early taken up by sporting men

 even as a smooth cheeked lad
 there was a certain way charles had
 of always seeming to acquiesce
 in anything his fellows pressed

 upon his burgeoning consciousness
 sometimes more, but rarely less
 he would nod polite approval
 and never ask for the removal

 of any new or old temptation
 and with little contemplation
 allow himself to plunge headfirst
 into each appetite or thirst...

                                              *

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