Page 70 - Poetry-Whimsy

And William was wont to be fully content
Until he had nothing on earth to resent.

Thinking, in France, there’d be some one to trounce,
He crossed to a place that I cannot pronounce,
Tendered some cheek to the king, who returned it;
Captured a queerly spelled city, and burned it.

He rode o’er the ruins; his horse, a mere foal,
Absent-mindedly stepped on a red -hot coal;
He thoughtlessly shied, and his rider’s inside
Was severely tried—something went—and he died.

RICHARD III.

‘Twas softest spring. King Edward’s internals
Collapsed; their possessor joined the supernals—
Or else the infernals. However, he died;
And Richard, observant of decency, cried.

Fearing the king might be lonely, though dead,
He sent for Lord Hastings, and cut off his head;
Sent for Lord Vaughan, who arrived at eleven,
Departed in sections, and lunched in heaven;
Sent for Lord Grey and the good Earl Rivers,
Who shortly appeared in a fit of shivers;
Begged them to follow the dear departed,
And in an hour they also had started.

While he was dying, they failed to remind
The king of his crown—Edward left it behind.
Such a contingency, as it appears,
Richard foresaw, and for several years
Had made preparations and plans of his own,
Of int’rest to those between him and the throne—
Slyly transforming each living impediment
Into an oozing, graveyard sediment.
For instance, that feeble Lancastrian hope,
Henry the Sixth, had neglected to slope;
And, minus his liberty, minus his reason,
Had taken apartments in town for the season—

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