by Anne Herrick
Partially based on lines from Shakespeare's Richard III, Act 5
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| Cartoon by Ann Telnaes |
My medal,
my medal!
America undone for my medal.
Forsooth, sire, I will assist you
in claiming this precious gold
Loyalist, I have lain my life upon this medal
I have set seven squabbles to peace—
Nay—I have in fact settled eight.
I must therefore have my medal.
I will, I must, doom America for my medal.
Courageous Sire, it is Norway
which has undone your gold,
I must find the wretch
that decreed the providence of this prize
Great God of Heaven, say amen
I will usurp, I will slay, this Danish bloody dog
which hath denied what has always been my due.
I will pluck this traitor’s foreign Greenland
and put its gold upon my oval mantelpiece.
On bended knee I needs say, my Gracious Sire
that Denmark is not quite where is Norway —
it is avowedly smallest, in the cold North Sea.
Oh, Slave, I will choose who is to blame.
I will push Denmark to weep in streams of blood.
I will save Greenland from Denmark’s yoke of tyranny,
dig far into the bowels of its land,
will cast its destiny with the doomed dome of America.
I know that true hope flies with swallow’s wings,
that it is the meaner creatures that make kings.
Anne Herrick has published a few poems and prose in the US and UK.
