Sir Beelzebub
When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea,
(Rocking and shocking the barmaid).
Nobody comes to give him his rum but the
Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum
Enhances the chances to bless with a benison
Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid
With cold vegetation from pale deputations
Of temperance workers (all signed In Memoriam)
Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate's feet,
(Moving in classical metres) ...
Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the
Roof, and the sea's blue wooden gendarmerie
Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for his rum.
... None of them come!
Commentary
Here’s a poem I’ve been thinking about sending in for a while. And I was shocked – shocked! – to discover the word hippopotamus in there. Actually it would make a good segue away from hippopotami. I first read this in the Collins Albatross Book of Verse, and loved it at age ten. I still like it now: I love the metre, and the stuttering way it starts, like a car ignition coughing and then roaring into life.
— Mike
Thomas adds
“It seems very pretty”, she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!”
– Alice, upon reading “Jabberwocky”