Your task, if you choose to accept it:

Re-write Beowulf, or a part of it, or Light Brigade, or any other famous poem, in limerick stanzas.

I'll comment next week on my return from away.

David

Ode To A Nightingale

A nightingale I once heard cheep
stirred in me longings quite deep.
...I said with a sigh,
...“I wish I could die!”
then wondered, “Do I wake or sleep?”




[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 08, 2006).]

Do Not Go Gentle

Oh father, near death on that height,
curse for me, put up a fight!
...Am I sentimental
...to say don't go gentle
but rage as you face that good night?

**

Beowulf

For most folks just one monster killed
would mean that their quota was filled.
... Not Beowulf! He
... dispatched (count ’em) three,
before his own lifeblood was spilled.


**


Charge of the Light Brigade

Not given to reasoning why,
not choosing to make a reply,
... though someone had blundered
... on rode the six hundred
and did what they did, which was die.







[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 08, 2006).]

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the lot” they said
Ours not to reason why
but sit in the dark and sigh
or ten cents a kilowatt paid.




[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited May 09, 2006).]

Let Me Not To The Marriage, etc.

To the marriage of true minds admit
no impediment; no, not one bit!
...Prove that I lie
...and you've also proved I
never loved, and what's more, never writ.



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 09, 2006).]

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? My list:
up down and sideways. The gist
...is "every which way."
...What more can I say?
I'll love thee when I don't exist.

***

Death of a Hired Man

"Silas is home," Mary said.
"Warren, be nice. He's in bed."
... "I'll go and check 'nd
... be back in a second,"
said Warren, but Silas was dead.






[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 09, 2006).]

Gunga Din

Though 'eathen, 'is virtues eclipse
My own, as 'e waters my lips.
...In Injia or 'ell,
...'E serves just as well,
But 'ell 'as a jar wot's marked TIPS.



[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited May 09, 2006).]

The Iliad

Achilles and Hector would grumble,
"Why, gods, won't the city walls tumble?"
... Imagine their joy
... when the morons of Troy
were deaf to the horse belly's rumble.

Or was it they thought, "indigestion,"
dismissing Cassandra's suggestion
... that maybe they should
... put their ears to the wood,
if only to settle the question?





[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 09, 2006).]

The Second Second Coming

There once was a dunce falconeer
who discovered his bird wouldn't hear
imprecations to halt
(they shared the same fault),
as the Beast slouched increasingly near.

The Tyger

O Tyger whose spelling is y'd,
Who made thee? What tools were applied?
...Who dared to design
...Each dread, deadly line?
Just what did the school board decide?