by Chris "Childe Harold" Oakley
Eros, thou! Shameless boy!
Hear my scold for thy wayward darts!
For so wild thou shootest it does me annoy:
Now to conjoin such alien hearts!
Is thy bow thy lyre, and mankind thy toy?
To be made fools through thy shameful arts?
Passion, for aye, is good for the race:
But this latest one does our kind disgrace!
Yet who is immune to love's magic power?
Yearning, longing, yet delicious death desiring,
With the radiant lov'd one who does perfum'd darts shower:
Sweet thralldom, life draining, yet poets firing!
Delectable nectar of youth's fullest flower;
Passion of the world, yet to heav'n aspiring!
How poor we would be, our souls down-at-heel,
If love, howe'er strange, we ne'er did feel!
Unlikely the lad, stranger the passion!
An ashen-fac'd youth, a ne'er-do-well:
Who led his life in such haphazard fashion
He could scarce his arse from his elbow tell;
With drink and vice his only mission,
He also wrote verse, 'twas as nauseous as hell.
How chang'd the man! Reform'd the rake,
When Muriel the ewe he for bride did take!
A laggard was he, a somnolent slugabed,
Sleeping all day, and whoring all night:
Desk piled high with tomes he never read,
With visage so lewd he would old ladies fright:
A wastrel, to his wasted conscience dead,
His baleful presence the college did blight;
No vile amusement, no dark, depraved crime
Was too low for this sot: this son of grime!
The M.C.R. had in a transport of folly
'Pointed this dreg to be their boss:
How cruel, they thought, to get this wally,
This evil rogue who gave not a toss!
The cynical wretch e'en stole their lolly:
'Twas years ere they recover'd the loss!
"Repent at leisure for thy hasty actions", they say:
This they learn'd the bitterest way!
Oft-times did Daniel punt on the river
To restore his health after nocturnal binge;
Though his nightly perversions would make one shiver,
On the idyllic Cherwell with its verdant fringe,
All seem'd blissful calm, and Danny's liver
Recover'd from the assault that did impinge.
Such things are giv'n e'en to those who stray:
This must be true - or he'd have drowned straightway!
One bright summer's day he lay on the bank
And stared at the sky: 'twas whirling around;
Then saw he a ewe who from the river drank,
And then ambled back to her grazing ground.
Dan's mind fill'd with thoughts loathsome and rank:
He rose, and was upon her in a single bound!
The hapless teg was thus trapp'd in a trice,
And forc'd to take part in unnatural vice!
Recalling later his herbivorous pleasure,
He decided it better than the normal kind;
And return'd oft, at his leisure
Some more poor bleaters there to find:
'Twas not long, then, ere he got the measure,
And in using long wellies he positively shined!
'Though in covering his tracks he made no mistake,
For he knew even the Dean a dim view would take!
For months this continued, this ruminant rape;
In meadow, in bedroom, in hedgerow, in boats;
No woolly four-footer could easily escape
This frenetic campaign to "get his oats";
The pounding passion of this furious man-ape
Would have startled e'en he who Liberal votes!
Yet a change took place in the strange sodomite:
For in Dan's dark existence came a ray of light!
For on one young ewe he developed a crush:
Named Muriel, her fleece white as snow;
Her gait was dainty, and her tail was plush:
He made her a ribbon with a little blue bow;
He brought her to meadows both green and lush
And wrote more vile poems, his love to show!
To see such tenderness in a degenerate youth
Was quite unwonted, 'twas affecting, in sooth!
And merry was the mirth of the winged child
Who hover'd unperceiv'd above the pair;
His unheard laughter was reckless and wild,
'Bout the golden arrow he'd shot with such care.
"Forsooth," he chuckled, "ne'er more was nature beguiled
'Cept when my dart smote Titania fair!
For how could such ravishing passion start
Without her becoming the thing of his heart?"
No more, Dan decided, should he his secret keep:
He'd tell the world, shout loud, and tell all!
Explain how it was that a beautiful sheep
Had captured his heart, and now held him in thrall!
No more, he swore, would he stealthily creep,
Sheep in hand, in the dark, o'er the college wall!
For no two-legged waitress, now knew he right well
Could ever produce such a magic spell!
Yet 'twas not easy, as he might rightly have fear'd:
First thought they that Daniel a farmer had become;
'Though when Dan and his sheep, out walking near'd,
They thought it strange that he and his chum
Together in the middle of a city appear'd!
"This is Muriel," explain'd Dan, "my sweet sugar plum!"
Then thought they, "How strange! How perverted and wrong!
That a meadow-dweller should thus to a man belong!"
When his mother heard of his proclivity,
She was vex'd sore, nay, quite out of her wits!
"Find a nice girl, I said, but to take such liberty
In interpreting my words, that's just the pits!"
And his father said, with the utmost levity,
"You're now disinherited: I've torn my will to bits!"
Disowned, disinherited, and by the college cast out,
Yet of the rightness of his choice, he has no doubt!