Poetry Pleases: Going Up
There's a chuckle in every verse of Brian Jenkinson's poem. And the message is...but don't let me spoil it. Read on, and find out for yourself.
(With apologies to Longfellow's 'Excelsior')
The shades of night were falling fast
(They didn't half make a clatter),
When up the hill there trudged a lad
As mad as any hatter.
He struggled on until he reached
The home of old Miss Gossage,
And then unfurled a flag which read,
'Try our best thick pork sausage.'
But old Miss Gossage wasn't at home
And so the lad went higher,
Just as the snow began to fall,
To find another buyer.
A young girl who lived on the hill
Was looking from her cottage.
She saw the handsome lad and called,
"Come in and have some pottage."
"I'd like to," the young man replied,
"And yet I cannot tarry.
I'm advertising for the Co-op
And have this flag to carry.
They're very strict with me and if
I don't work like a skivvy,
They will refuse to pay me
And they'll even stop my divi."
At dawn a shepherd with his dog
Was walking on the height
When there before him in the snow
He saw a piteous sight.
There lay the youth as cold as ice,
His flag still in his hand,
Proclaiming Co-op pork sausages
The finest in the land.
The moral of this tragic tale,
A warning to the wise:
Look out because it may not always
Pay to advertise.
