A bit of light verse ...

Melville Goodwin, a frequent visitor to this blog, posted some very clever light verse as a comment on my most recent fashion statement. This has inspired me to post some light verse that I wrote last spring in honor of the Royal wedding. The Inquirer's fine arts editor, Jeff Weinstein, who edits my "Editor's Choice" column -- and is the best editor I've ever worked with -- suggested it, and luckily some ideas actually floated to the surface of my consciousness. Here's what appeared on the day of the nuptials:

Perhaps the most important task of a British poet laureate is to celebrate royal weddings with an epithalamium, a poem in honor of the bride and groom to be. Of course, this particular nuptial has been downscaled, postponed - and the Prince has been asked by the Church of England to apologize to his beloved’s former husband.

But poet laureate Andrew Motion has put off his task for other reasons. He was extremely fond of the previous royal bride, and it’s been reported that he’s having trouble coming up with adequate rhymes for "Camilla. "

So, in his place, our resident laureate offers the couple his poetic gift (having tried and rejected "vanilla," "chinchilla," "sarsaparilla" and, in an American vein, "bridezilla").

Royal Couplets

Of marriage, matron, prince, and bard I sing,

And of delays the fates seem bent to fling

Into the way of true love’s unsmooth course.

Who wouldn’t swap his kingdom for a horse

When called upon to first acknowledge sin

To gain the church’s pardon, just to win

A Town Hall wedding scheduled on the day

That Papal obsequies get in the way?

And now, the charge to praise love’s true devotion

Has England’s Laureate in a commotion.

The scribe dear late Diana’s charms inspired

Has found his rhyming muse is sick, and tired.

What’s to be done, but take our pen in hand,

Declaring even messy love is grand?

All vain and pompous circumstance aside

It’s just another hopeful groom and bride.

Therefore we wish poor Charles and his Camilla

Full wedded bliss, down to the last scintilla.