Mariah's Lesson.
By A-nannie-mouse.
It all happened upon the night of last Christmas eve,
After nodding her excited person off to sleep,
Whilst dwelling on visions of the presents, food, and tree,
And not upon the swaddling babe encircled by ox and sheep.
Slowly, gradually her visions of the morn melted away,
Forming into visions, strange, different, new,
Gone was her familiar décor in readiness for Christmas day,
As was the tree all alit with candles, gold, silver, and blue.
She found herself gliding through the streets of London,
Across Hyde Park and through The Circus she flew,
But as she neared Earl's Ct. she stopped and stood as a pawn,
And though the night was damp she was not affected by the dew.
There she stood more still than a statue, awaiting the dawn,
Then as the sky awoke with light, beauty, and flair,
She also wakened from her strange sleep, with a glorious yawn,
And closed her eyes whilst taking-in refreshing morning air.
When her eyes she opened though, she was in a unfamiliar room,
At first glace it seemed quite a normal Christmas morn,
There were the delighted children with their parents, faces all abloom,
There was the tree, with cozy candles and crystal globes adorned.
But there was a sense of gloom that she thought mocked the joy
As if in that room a storm was about to break,
She couldn't put her fingers on it, that which did the happiness annoy,
Until she looked about and what she found made her heart ache.
Everything had at once become as clear as clean glass,
There, overhung on the mantel, was a musket,
And, on wooden pegs, lay a sward adorned with gold and brass,
That doleful glance the couple shared, shedding tears at it.
This then is a scene from a Royal officer's house she thought,
The father is leaving for his three-year tour,
He's bound for Godless Africa where the King's wars are to be fought,
He will soon be, on deployment day, bidding his family Au revoir.
When she woke that Christmas morn the presents weren't her nub,
Instead of crashing down the stairs, like waves on the shore,
Mariah got calmly up out of bed, dressed herself, and applied her scrub,
For she knew now she had priceless gifts to be thankful for.
So there you go. Be thankful that you don't live in 19th century England, that your dad isn't going away to Africa for 3 years, and that you have a happy family.
Seriously though. I'm not usually a poem guy, but this one really caught my attention because as you know, I think its important to be thankful no matter where you are in life, and I also think that the sacrifices our veterans make are really underappreciated in our time. It also might have been that I've been to Hyde Park and Piccadilly Circus and Earl's Court. Ok, I'm just rubbing it in now. ;)
And I know its not Christmastime yet, but hey, they're already playing Christmas commercials, so...
Ok, and about the poem now. I came across it on the wonderful internet and judging from the odd vocabulary, i.e. nob and scrub it was probably written in 18th or 19th century England. And "A-nannie-mouse" was just me trying to be clever. I guess the internet doesn't know everything because it didn't know the name of the author.
I think I'm also going to start proofreading my posts because the typos are really getting over the top. But its to be stated next post, so don't get mad if there are any in this one.
-Thomas
No comments:
Post a Comment