Cheer up, dear Lad!
Ages old, and stories untold
Lived there a man of exceeding gold
He moved from house to house
And from place to place
Yet never could he find the one he sought
So desperately he fought
For a glimpse of her eyes
Or her shining smiles
Over the earth he walked
Barefoot and distraught
“Flow, flowing river and sea”
He spoke to the great, blue body
“Where is she
Where has she hid
Under which tree, or in which lee,
Does she speak of me
“Poor, poor soul”
Thought the sea
“She no longer cares about he”
But unwilling to divulge this loss
Wanting to cover it up as to a lake does a moss
The sea sang this song back to he
He who cared for his lost love eternally
“O fairest man and noblest soul
Love will find you on some other knoll
Skip here or skip there
And some maiden fair
Is bound to appear
Love should not die because of one heartbreak
Let her soar again, over the heights of one mistake
But the man was hurt even further,
A dagger in the heart was that sea’s murmur
“Oh no! Oh no! It was never a mistake
How could you such a devilish lie make
She was my one and only, and my star and moon
She shone bright and made me swoon
Her voice lulled birds to sanguine sleep
Her virtue saved sinners from abysmal deep
Never a maiden lived so great
I am determined, never again to date!
So the man marched away from the sand
And went forlornly to the oak tree
His friend from childhood, wiser than the sea
“O oaky oaky ,best of friends,
Tell me how I can with a past lover make amends
For I love her still, and thinking of her gives me thrill
Well there be no end, to my pain and this insufferable trend
Oaky, oaky tell me now, or else, he laughed, and feigned to pretend,
I will make you go up up in smoky smoky!
The oak tree sighed, and through his xylem cried
“Dearest dear, have no fear,
Love is a cruel thing to those closest her
You will find another, I promise you brother,
Be happy and content
The world is full of lovers and good intent!”
“Oh no! Oh no!” The man refused to listen
You are wrong, you are wrong
She will come back to me before long
Leave me alone and may it forever be known
That oaky knows nothing but to breathe and moan
So the man marched away from the oak tree,
And decided at last his heavenly father to ask
“Father, Father up in the sky, please tell me why
She left me and hurt me, and evades my sigh
The man in the sky refused to answer
And instead delegated it to his brother, the earth-shaker
“Poseidon, Poseidon” cried Zeus, while eating mousse,
I’m too busy for this boy, and the hoi-polloi,
Do something strange and weird
And maybe tickle his beard
With a ground shaking and earth-quaking
So that he takes some significance
From the sky’s secret indifference
“All right, big brother” said Poseidon
Here I go, way way down below
And as he said this he belly-flopped
Into the sea, so flippantly trippingly
That a biggy wave the land sumptuously craved,
To fill his belly with the sounds of the depraved.
And who should be surfing on the sea, all along!
Other than the man’s lover, she of his hearty song
The wave lifted her up, and brought her to land
And the man waved, and smiled, and marveled out loud
“O the gods love me, they love me
She was brought by nature and without a fee!”
Outstretched arms, he reached to catch her
But woefully missed, and his lover surfed on and on
Until she smashed into a wall, her brains dashed and gone
“Fuck, this sucks” thought the man
“Well, surely heaven had a plan”
And before he knew it,
He saw a crowd of refugees
Scattered and distraught, many on their knees
Run from Athens and the Cyclades
And a beautiful woman wept and sighed
She laid on the ground and cried
“There, there dear, everything will be all right”
The woman had lost her husband, her donkey and her sight
But damn did she look good in velvet tights!
And so the man offered to take her home
“Mother, mother I cannot see”
“Is this man a God or some beauty?”
The mother looked the man up and down
And noticed his only two tooth were round
He was short as Napoleon and skinny as Sicily
He smelt of frogs, wafted of weary hogs
The mother was about to confirm
The man was worse than an earth-worm
When out of the corner of her eye
She the gold in his pocket did spy
And then with a cry of hip, hip, hurray
She said to her babe,
“Daughter, daughter barely-survivor of the water
“He is like Zeus in his aspect,
Brave and strong and correct
He is like Hercules in his physique
With a body you could endlessly critique
The daughter was won over by her sympathetic, and upright mother
And embraced blindly this traveling, Grecian lover.
“Thank the gods all and mighty,” laughed the man
This world is ordered and just and according to plan
The sea and the oak, and the sky
I owe a big and wholehearted apology
Love comes and goes according to her throes
One must just wait, and then let fate,
The rest accomplish by her silver plate!
So the man walked along, hearty and uplifted
His new lover in his arms, he shifted
“No my dear,” kiss me here and here
He moved her mouth from his chin and his ear
And so the two walked along, beyond the mount and by the lake
Over the old lover’s body they walked, by mistake
And kissed and kissed all night long
In his home miles and miles from Zeus’s throne.
So dear reader, we reach our lofty moral
Keep on going through life on your own laurel
And never over a long-lost lover quarrel
For someone new will pass by
Or someone old will die
And then man of gold
Will you a new babe take hold!