**

                          A poem
                          ------

                   Author:  Not known
             Cribbed from:  "Lines from my Grandfather's forhead"
                             Ronnie Barker.  BBC Radio 4 c. 1970.






In olden Scandinavia
When standards of behaviour
Were rather lax, and income tax
Was twopence in the ducat,

Denmark's democratic king
One day became a static king:
He went to rest, became non-est,
In fact he kicked the bucket.


He had, it seemed, been victimised.
The reason for his quick demise
Developed from a charming trick
Of brother Claude, the thug,

Who, while the king was sleeping sound
Came silently a creeping round
And dropped a deadly poison in
The royal Danish lug.


Then to the queen, a flirty gal,
He whispered, "Listen Gertie gal
Now I'm the king and everything
We might as well be one."

"So when we've had the funeral
Or even rather sooner'll
Just suit me fine.  Oh Gert, be mine!"
Gert said, "It might be fun."



The former king had had a lad
Called Hamlet, and a sadder lad
You never saw:  a royal bore,
An autocratic dope.

In introspective reverie
He'd spend his days for ever.  He
Could ask for nothing better
Than to sit around and mope.


One night upon the battlement,
Or so the tittle-tattle went,
A ghost was seen in shades of green
A-frightening the warders.

The sergeant, once a bastion
Said, "Blimey!  Ere's a nasty 'un.
Go fetch the prince, this ere's against
The current standin' orders."



When Hamlet came the fear he'd had
All vanished, as his eerie dad
Told how he died.  Young Hamlet cried,
And not without a wince,

"Put poison up your ear-hole dad
Then I'll avenge you dear old dad!"
"Thank you kindly," cried the phantom.
"Not at all," replied the prince.


"I'll sham," he said, "delirium
And worry 'em and weary 'em,
Create a play, and in this way
Suspicion I'll dispel."

He went too far.  As soon as he
Decided on this lunacy
The things he did quite soon got rid
Of half the personnel.



While in a boudoir, chatting there,
He thought he heard a rat in there.
Ignoring the demeanour of
The queen a-looking on

He shouted, "For a ducat, dead."
Right through the arras bucketed
And stuck a yard of rapier through
His mother's best cretonne.


His statement was erroneous
He'd done for poor Pollonius
Who, embarrassed, from the arras
Tottered out, and sadly said,

"First you make a rat of me
Then puncture my anatomy.
Call this a lark?"  With which remark
He hit the carpet, dead.



Pollonius a daughter had
Who reckoned that she ought to had
Have wed the prince some ages since
But all he did was mock her

By saying, "Dear Ophelia
I really feel you merely are
A silly slut."  A cruel cut
That sent her off her rocker.


She chanted snatches sundry,
Sighed, went out into the countryside
And climbed some trees, still chanting glees
A little off the key.

Alas an envious sliver there
Tipped her into the river there
And, quite serene, she last was seen
A-heading out to sea.



Her brother, name of Leyertes,
Imagined he could slay, at ease,
Young Hamlet with a poisoned sword
That uncle Claude had lent him.

But Hamlet soon discerned the trick,
Plugged Leyertes and turned the trick,
Then made a spring right at the king
And rather badly bent him.


Meanwhile a jug of lemonade
The king had with some venom made
Caught Gertie's eye and, feeling dry,
She drained the poisoned jug

While Hamlet, still rheotorical,
Got rather allegorical.
Some phrases coined, then quietly joined
His mother, on the rug.



And while the bodies dropped around
Horatio, who'd popped around
To see the end and superintend,
Came through the palace doorway

With fortinbrass, and legions
Of hairy great Norwegians,
Who trampled in with pomp and din
And siezed the throne for Norway.


The moral of this story, boys,
Is don't be death-or-glory boys.
Don't try to rule, or maybe you'll
Find you are apt to bungle.

Don't bother with detection lads,
Just stick to introspection lads:
Be kind, be good, and if you would
Try not to stab your ungle.



