Now that he is gone
Let us say only this of him –
He was a jolly good fellow
But a simpleton.
A yokel not altogether ugly
Nor handsome nor frolicsome
Yet a source of great fun.
Neither hulky nor bulky
But a peptic crank
Among eupeptic friends.
Constitutionally weak
Incapable of any show of strength
The length and girth of his person showed
He had no personality.
Impress he could hardly
For his dress
Out of fashion always
And antedated at least by a generation
Was spectacularly drab.
When others confabbed
And in brilliant catechisms
Brilliant arguments advanced
With his low I.Q. he did pretend
He was no less brilliant.
But fortunately he mostly kept mum
Or if ever he cracked
A sample of his wisdom
It was ignored in friendly indulgence
For his friends were kind to him
And men of high intelligence quotient.
That he was not quite sane
Was taken by all for granted
For always he did the most erroneous things,
Things not approved by majority wisdom.
Not portly in his bearing
And lacking in art
Not a modern knight-at-arms
He failed to win a courtesan heart
And when the chance came
That chance of a lifetime
To bid for his worth
He couldn’t bargain.
An eminent drudge
Others bluffed their way he trudged.
This goat got caught
While others escaped.
In the race
Always tripped by friends
He was the last.
Nor he had any patron to back
For over backwards he never bent.
A dodo so dull
Unable to fly or shift his position
He was a sitting target.
Those on the left
Thought
He was on the right
And the right thought him on the left.
He didn’t know this simple truth
To be neither here nor there
Was to be in no-man’s land.
In chaotic crossfires
Others could duck
But out his neck he stuck
In changeful weathers
He couldn’t be a weathercock.
This crazy fool so idiotically brave
Long deserved a grave
And in our favor it must be said
This we never demurred.
He was loved by God
So he fondly thought
But he didn’t die young.
We shall miss a lot of fun
But he will be missed by none
For in this world of intelligence abundant
He was redundant.
