An Elegy on the Death of Admiral James Norrington
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its fragrance on the desert air."
-Gray
Where are the hands that sadly deck the bier?
And where the eyes that shed a kindly tear,
For one who, valiant in both thought and deed,
Did shed his blood and die? - O give ye heed,
Ye pirate-types who would such honour scorn,
And between CAP'N JACK and WILL be torn!
For we have lost a gallant man ten times
The worth of these, who live upon their crimes,
Who to the good and lawful gave a voice,
Did right- and then was murdered for his choice
To save a lady (but that just in name)
For there are few that I would more defame,
Than she whom I hold wrong in high degree
For this and for destroying P & P! (1)----
But I digress- It is perhaps my woe
That drives me then to go on tangents so,
But she deserves it not in any wize
To any longer be immortalized.
Then to thy early grave I now will wend,
A sympathetic, solitary friend,
And sing my lays beneath the willow tree, (2)
Though technically (I know) you died at sea.
How sorrowf'lly I'll write thy epitaph---
Wait! --- did I hear (O blasphemy!) a LAUGH?!
Think not, thou cruel one, born with heart of steel
That I can't love a man who isn't real,
For it is those who aren't that most deserve
That passion which I will not chuse to curb.
Retire, thou dullard, with humiliation,
And mourn the loss of thy imagination!
(1)Pride and Prejudice
(2)Traditionally associated with mourning.