The story of King Arthur old is very memorable,
The number of his valiant knights, and roundness of his Table.
The knights around his table in a circle sate, d’ye see,
And altogether made up one large hoop of chivalry.
He had a sword, both broad and sharp, y-cleped Caliburn,
Would cut a flint more easily than a pen-knife cuts a corn;
As case-knife does a capon carve, so would it carve a rock,
And split a man at single slash from noddle down to nock.
As Roman Augur’s steel of yore dissected Tarquin’s riddle,
So this would cut both conjurer and whetstone thro’ the middle.
He was the cream of Brecknock, and flower of all the Welsh:
But George he did the dragon fell, and gave him a plaguy squelsh.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Pendragon, like his father Jove, was fed with milk of goat;
And like him made a noble shield of she-goat’s shaggy coat;
On top of burnisht helmet he did wear a crest of leeks
And onions’ heads, whose dreadful nod drew tears down hostile cheeks.
Itch and Welsh blood did make him hot and every prone to ire;
H’ was ting’d with brimstone, like a match, and would as soon take fire.
As brimstone he took inwardly when scurf gave him occasion,
His postern puff of wind was a sulphureous exhalation.
The Briton never tergivers’d, but was for adverse drubbing,
And never turn’d his back to aught, but to a post for scrubbing.
His sword would serve for battle, or for dinner, if you please;
When it had slain a Cheshire man ‘twould toast a Cheshire cheese.
He wounded and, in their own blood, did anabaptize Pagans:
But George he made the dragon an example to all dragons.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Brave Warwick Guy, at dinner time, challeng’d a gyant savage;
And streight came out the unwieldy lout brim-full of wrath and cabbage.
He had a phiz of latitude, and was full thick i’ th’ middle;
The cheeks of puffed Trumpeter, and paunch of Squire Beadle.
But the knight fell’d him like an oak, and did upon his back tread;
The valiant knight his weazon cut, and Atropos his packthread.
Besides he fought with a dun cow, as say the poets witty,
A dreadful dun, and horned too, like dun of Oxford city.
The fervant dog-days made her mad, by causing heat of weather,
Syrius and Procyon baited her, as bull-dogs did her father;
Grasiers nor butchers this fell beast, e’er of her frolick hindred;
John Dosset she’d knock down as flat, as John knocks down her kindred;
Her heels would lay ye all along, and kick into a swoon;
Frewin’s cow-heels keep up your corpse, but hers would beat you down.
She vanquisht many a sturdy wight, and proud was of the honour;
Was pufft by mauling butchers so, as if themselves had blown her.
At once she kickt and pusht at Guy, but all that would not fright him,
Who wav’d his winyard o’er sirloyn, as if he’d gone to knight him.
He let her blood, frenzy to cure, and eke he did her gall rip;
His trenchant blade, like cook’s long spit, ran thro’ the monster’s bald-rib;
He rear’d up the vast crooked rib, instead of arch triumphal:
But George hit th’ dragon such a pelt, as made him on his bum fall.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Tamerlain, with Tartarian bow, the Turkish squadrons slew,
And fetch’d the pagan crescent down with half-moon made of yew.
His trusty bow proud Turks did gall with showers of arrows thick,
And bow-strings, without strangling, sent Grand-Visiers to old Nick;
Much turbants and much Pagan pates he made to humble in dust;
And heads of Saracens he fixt on spear, as on a sign-post;
He coop’d in cage Bajazet, the prop of Mahomet’s religion,
As if’t had been the whispering bird that prompted him, the pigeon.
In Turkey-leather scabbard, he did sheath his blade so trenchant:
But George he swing’d the dragon’s tail, and cut off every inch on’t.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
The amazon Thalestris was both beautiful and bold;
She sear’d her breasts with iron hot, and bang’d her foes with cold.
Her hand was like the tool wherewith Jove keeps proud mortals under;
It shone just like his lightning, and batter’d like his thunder.
Her eye darts lightning that would blast the proudest he that swagger’d,
And melt the rapier of his soul, in its corporeal scabbard.
Her beauty and her drum, to foes, did cause amazement double;
As timorous larks amazed are with light and with a low-bell,
With beauty and that Lapland-charm, poor men she did bewitch all;
Still a blind whining lover had, as Pallas had her scrich-owl.
She kept the chastness of a nun in armour, as in cloyster:
But George undid the dragon just as you’d undo an oister.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Stout Hercules was offspring of great Jove and fair Alcmene;
One part of him celestial was, one part of him terrene.
To scale the hero’s cradle walls two fiery snakes combin’d,
And, curling into a swaddling cloaths, about the infant twin’d;
But he put out these dragons’ fires, and did their hissing stop;
As red-hot iron with hissing noise is quencht in blacksmith’s shop.
He cleans’d a stable, and rubb’d down the horses of new comers;
And out of horse-dung he rais’d fame, as Tom Wrench does cucumbers,
He made a river help him through, Alpheus was under-groom,
The stream, disgust at office mean, ran murmuring thro’ the room;
This liquid ostler to prevent being tired with that long work,
His father Neptune’s trident took, instead of three-tooth’d dung-fork.
This Hercules, as soldier and as spinster, could take pains;
His club would sometimes spin ye flax, and sometimes knock out brains;
H’ was forc’d to spin his miss a shift by Juno’s wrath and her-spite;
Fair Omphale whipt him to his wheel, as cook whips barking turn-spit.
From man or churn, he well knew how to get him lasting fame:
He’d pound a giant till the blood, and milk till butter came.
Often he fought with huge battoon, and oftentimes he boxed;
Tapt a fresh monster once a month, and he gave Anteus such a hug,
As wrestlers give in Cornwall: but George he did the dragon kill,
As dead as any door-nail.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
The Gemini, sprung from an egg, were put into a cradle;
Their brains with knocks and bottled-ale, were often-times full addle;
And, scarcely hatch’d, these sons of him that hurls the bolt trisulcate,
With helmet-shell on tender head did tustle with red-ey’d pole-cat.
Castor a horseman, Pollux tho’ a boxer was, I wist:
The one was fam’d for iron heel; th’ other for leaden fist.
Pollux to shew he was a god, when he was in a passion
With fist made noses fall down flat by way of adoration:
This first, as sure as French disease, demolish’d noses’ ridges;
He, like a certain lord, was fam’d for breaking down of bridges.
Castor the flame of fiery steed with well-spurr’d boots took down;
As men, with leathern buckets, quench a fire in country town.
His famous horse, that liv’d on oats, is sung on oaten quill;
By bards’ immortal provender the nag surviveth still.
This shelly brood on none but knaves employ’d their brisk artillery,
And flew as naturally at rogues, as eggs at thief in pillory.
Much sweat they spent in furious fight, much blood they did effund;
Their whites they vented thro’ the pores; their yolks thro’ gaping wound.
Then both were cleans’d from blood and dust to make a heavenly sign;
The lads were, like their armour, scowr’d, and then hung up to shine;
Such were the heavenly double-Dicks, the sons of Jove and Tyndar:
But George he cut the dragon up, as he had bin duck or windar.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Gorgon a twisted adder wore for knot upon her shoulder;
She kemb’d her hissing periwig, and curling snakes did powder.
These snakes they made stiff changelings of all the folks they hist on;
They turned barbers into hones, and masons into free-stone.
Sworded magnetic Amazon her shield to load-stone changes;
Then amorous sword by magic belt clung fast unto her haunches.
This shield long village did protect, and kept the army from-town,
And chang’d the bullies into rocks that came t’ invade Long-Compton
She post-diluvian stores unmans, and Pyrrha’s work unravels;
And stares Deucalion’s hardy boys into their primitive pebbles.
Red noses she to rubies turns, and noddles into bricks:
But George made dragon laxative; and gave him a bloody flix.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
By boar-spear Meleager got an everlasting name,
And out of haunch of basted swine, he hew’d eternal fame.
This beast each hero’s trouzers ript, and rudely shew’d his bare-breech,
Prickt but the wem, and out there came Heroic guts and garbadge.
Legs were secured by iron boots no more than peas by peascods;
Brass helmets, with inclosed sculls, wou’d crackle in’s mouth like chestnuts.
His tawny hairs erected were by rage, that was resistless;
And wrath, instead of cobler’s wax, did stiffen his rising bristles.
His tusk lay’d dogs so dead asleep, nor horn, nor whip cou’d wake um:
It made them vent both their last blood, and their last album-grecum.
But the knight gor’d him with his spear to make of him a tame one,
And arrows thick, instead of cloves, he stuck in monster’s gammon.
For monumental pillar, that his victory might be known,
He rais’d up, in cylindric form, a collar of the brawn.
He sent his shade to shades below, in Stygian mud to wallow:
And eke the stout St. George eftsoon, he made the dragon follow.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Achilles of old Chiron learnt the great horse for to ride;
H’ was taught by th’ Centaur’s rational part, the hinnible to bestride.
Bright silver feet and shining face had that stout hero’s mother;
As rapier’s silver’d at one end, and wounds you at the other.
Her feet were bright, his feet were swift, as hawk pursuing sparrow;
Her’s had the metal, his the speed of Braburn’s silver arrow.
Thetis to double pedagogue commits her dearest boy;
Who bred him from a slender twig to be the scourge of Troy;
But ere he lasht the Trojans, h’ was in Stygian waters steept,
As birch is soaked first in piss when boys are to be whipt.
With skin exceeding hard, he rose from lake, so black and muddy
As lobsters from the ocean rise with shell about their body,
And, as from lobster’s broken claw, pick out the fish you might,
So might you from one unshell’d hell dig pieces of the knight.
His myrmidons robb’d Priam’s barns and hen-roosts, says the song;
Carried away both corn and eggs, like ants from whence they sprung.
Himself tore Hector’s pantaloons, and sent him down bare-breech’d
To pedant Radamanthus in a posture to be switch’d.
But George he made the dragon look as if he had been bewitch’d.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Full fatal to the Romans was the Carthaginian Hannibal;
Him I mean, who gave them such a devilish thump at Cannae.
Moors, thick as goats on Penmenmure, stood on the Alpes’s front;
Their one-eyed guide, like blinking mole, bor’d thro’ the hind’ring mount:
Who, baffled by the massy rock, took vinegar for relief,
Like plowmen, when they hew their way thro’ stubborn rump of beef.
As dancing louts from humid toes cast atoms of ill savour
To blinking Hyatt, when on vile crowd he merriment does endeavour,
And saws from suffering timber out some wretched tune to quiver,
So Romans stunk and squeak’d at sight of Affrican carnivor.
The tawny surface of his phiz did serve instead of vizzard:
But George he made the dragon have a grumbling in his gizzard.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
The valour of Domitian, it must not be forgotten;
Who from the jaws of worm-blowing flies protected veal and mutton.
A squadron of flies errant against the foe appears,
With regiments of buzzing knights, and swarms of volunteers.
The warlike wasp encourag’d ’em with animating hum;
And the loud brazen hornet next, he was their kettle-drum;
The Spanish Don Cantharido did him most sorely pester,
And rais’d on skin of vent’rous knight full many a plaguy blister.
A bee whipt thro’ his button-hole, as thro’ key-hole a witch,
And stabb’d him with her little tuck drawn out of scabbard breech;
But the undaunted knight lifts up an arm both big and brawny,
And slasht her so that here lay head, and there lay bag and honey;
Then ‘mongst the rout he flew as swift as weapon made by Cyclops,
And bravely quell’d seditious buz, by dint of massy fly-flops.
Surviving flies do curses breathe, and maggots too, at Caesar:
But George he shav’d the dragon’s beard, and Askelon was his razor.
St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France;
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
(John Grubb)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, God Poems, Time Poems, Soul Poems, War & Peace Poems, Fairness Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Name Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Fire PoemsBased on Keywords: pense, inclosed, sulphureous, vented, castor, demolish, conjurer, whipt, myrmidons, rapier, pyrrha