[Dr. Thomas Davison]

I think- trying to name a monster?

Plakkopytrixophylisperambulantiobatrix

by G. K. Chesterton

Fear not, fear not, my children,

The last weird embers fade,

Blue corpses through the windows peer,

But still you seem afraid,

Perhaps there’s Something in the room,

Whatever would you do

If I were not among you now

To cheer and comfort you?

Heed not that pale thing in the door,

It smiles so like a skull,

You hear hoarse spectres scream and clank,

You find the evening dull?

Then let me tell a merry tale

Of dear old days of yore,

About a dragon of the wastes

That drank of human gore.

It dwelt among untrodden ways,

And ate the plaintive dove;

A dragon there were few to praise

And very few to love.

(I use this piece of Wordsworth

To show how much I know)

Uproariously popular

It was, as dragons go.

If I could only paint the Thing!

Just imitate its wink,

All you five infants, one by one,

Would rise and take to drink:

Or roll in death-pangs on the floor,

And lie there choked and blue,

O how I wish I could describe

This animal to you.

Some swore its fur was bushy brown,

Some swore that it was green,

With savage eyes of bluish grey:

Some swore that they had seen

In coils upon a sofa wreathed,

It, writhing as in pangs,

And tearing Bovril chocolate

With huge, abhorrent fangs.

Some said that far to eastward

They saw It, garbed in grey,

Standing upon a platform

And bellowing all day.

Some said that far to northward,

Through all the white snow-wreath,

They saw it, white and wolfish,

With half-a-million teeth.

When skies were blue with summer

It glittered, bright and blue,

And once, the stricken wanderer

In screaming terror flew,

For on the shining tableland

White gauze did round it glance,

And with one rose to crown it

He saw the dragon dance.

The Witless Youth in wonder

Sat lank upon a stone,

His Hat was monumental

Its secret—all his own.

The Sage was mild and hoary

And skilled in Wisdom’s page,

The Youth sat meek (as always)

And to him spoke the Sage.

“Go not to smite the Dragon

That wasteth field and fen,

Around her reeking cavern

Are strewn the hearts of men;

But youth is foolish: You, Sir,

Are singularly so—

So learn her horrid habits

At least, before you go.

“If you would raise her bristles up

And set her eye in flames,

Then seek the Hankin-Pankin

And read the Jenry-James;

Go with a train of spiders huge

With all their threads and thrums

From ledgers all declaiming

Interminable sums . . .

“But would you see the awful smile,

And soften down the Eye,

Then fetch the Stompy-Steinthal

And bring the Rompy-Rye;

And choirs of ladies tall and proud

With all one kind of nose,

And bucketsful of flowers,

And basketsful of clothes.’

(Unfinished, or if finished the last page has been lost.)