Classic Poem

To King Log the Supine
Who our frog-land rules over,
My knees I incline
And my head I uncover;
To him from heav'n lighted
This ode is indited:
Oh sweet and benign
Is King Log the Supine!
On his wat'ry estates
He crashed down with a spatter;
For you know wooden pates
Ever make the most clatter.
But soon the noise ended,
And mutely extended,
For derision a sign,
Lay King Log the Supine.
But this sight roused the fen
To a pitch of distraction:
“And is this the end, then,
Of a monarch of action?”
(Of language with glib use
Croaked chorus amphibious.)
“To be hissed from the bog,
Why such fuss, oh King Log?
Shall a trunk from the grove
Be thus crowned to degrade us?
'Tis a blunder of Jove,
Or a hoax he has played us;
Pack off without fracas
This Most Serene jackass,
And dismiss from our bog
His Inertia King Log.”
Hush, hush, all ye fools,
Who declaim with such vigour;
To reign o'er your pools
Leave this royal lay-figure.
To empty your purses,
Or silence your verses,
To butcher or flog
Is no part of King Log.
The sport of each shift
Of the currents and breezes,
In his palace adrift
He just floats as chance pleases;
The deeps leaves unsounded
In statecraft well grounded.
Oh wise and expert
Is King Log the Inert!
For a moment decoyed,
If his head he submerges,
By its lightness up-buoyed,
See how quick it emerges.
In safe high and dryness,
He well is styled Highness:
For the title doth square
With King Log to a hair.
Do ye pine for the lash
Of a serpent to rouse ye?
Sleep contented to plash
In the mud that doth house ye.
Oh impotent blockheads:
For your toothless sockets
Seems created express
Good King Log's Supineness!
For a nation that teems
With good things so abundant:
Common sense were it seems
But a virtue redundant.
Oh people discreetest,
Oh prince for them meetest!
What a pattern fine
Is King Log the Supine!