Hope this isn't stretching Michael's call for animal d-d's too much, but here's "Mary had a little lamb" I just recast into double-dactyl form on a challenge from a friend. (Given the nature of the undertaking, I thought it might be okay to wave the 2nd line as name rule.)
Stories are told of a
Mary McGarrity
who had a lamb with a
snowy white fleece.
Talk about ultimate
amicability!
They were so close that they
seemed of a piece.
Once on a beautiful
morning in autumn, it
followed our heroine
even to school.
Picture it acting so
anthropomorphically;
surely the creature was
some kind of fool!
There all her classmates were
taken with laughter, though
sterner Miss Prigg was less
kindly inclined.
She was despotic, and
inflexibility's
massive authority
governed her mind.
"Mary," she lectured, "we
simply can't tolerate
conduct encouraging
others to shirk,
nor will we countenance
extracurricular
matters that compromise
serious work."
Trembling, poor Mary, who
had no idea that
such inhumanity
lived in the heart,
tried to explain to the
disciplinarian
she and her lambkin were
never apart.
"Lambkin?!" Disquieted,
Prigg referred Mary to
Bilge the psychiatrist,
fearing her ill.
He was disturbed by such
interdependency,
deeming her "batty" and
padding his bill.
Word quickly spread of the
poor girl's infirmity--
carrying on with her
four-footed friend!
How can one answer such
scuttlebuttmongering?
Surely you know how the
story must end.
Mary was finally
driven to butcher her
dear little pet, and to
sell him for slops.
Quite a sad lesson in
quantificational
reckoning: friend =
twenty-two chops.
Jan
[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited April 13, 2001).]
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