Sir Beelzebub -- Edith Sitwell

Guest poem submitted by Mike Christie:

(Poem #849) Sir Beelzebub When Sir Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell Where Proserpine first fell, Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea, (Rocking and shocking the barmaid). Nobody comes to give him his rum but the Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum Enhances the chances to bless with a benison Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid With cold vegetation from pale deputations Of temperance workers (all signed In Memoriam) Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate's feet, (Moving in classical metres) ... Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the Roof, and the sea's blue wooden gendarmerie Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for his rum. ... None of them come! -- Edith Sitwell

Here's a poem I've been thinking about sending in for a while. And I was
shocked -- shocked! -- to discover the word hippopotamus in there. Actually
it would make a good segue away from hippopotami. I first read this in the
Collins Albatross Book of Verse, and loved it at age ten. I still like it
now: I love the metre, and the stuttering way it starts, like a car ignition
coughing and then roaring into life.

Mike.

[thomas adds]

"It seems very pretty", she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather
hard to understand!"
        -- Alice, upon reading "Jabberwocky"