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Poor Polidori's Unfinished Idea---A Ballad, A Little Risque; But Might Make A Good Ballet
"Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—what to see I forget—something very shocking and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted."
---Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, "Introduction To The 1831 Edition"
She was a grim, ancient old maid;
her face was like a skull's
visage. She peeped through strange keyholes---
and did so without pause.
She seemed to think that she was wise;
that others wished to hear
her thoughts about all this and that,
but she just stirred up fear
not just for her horrific looks,
but of her ignorance.
She lacked all couth, and hated books,
and spoke just like a dunce.
She took a pervserse pleasure in
all things funereal;
and her mouth broke into a grin
when someone's burial
happened. She said, each time, "Well fate
has certainly bestowed
its judgment on those recent dead:
they reap what they have sowed."
Something about that Juliet
seemed to that nosy dame
not quite traditional, but what
that was---she could not name.
She said, "I always thought there was
among those Capulets
something quite wild about their child---
the sort no one forgets."
She wished to have told Romeo
but he was greatly smitten
by Juliet's affections of
which many poems were written;
yes Juliet, who tossed caution
into the swirling wind;
and loved with an intensity
no judgment could rescind.
She crept out to the tombs, one night.
Into the Capulet's
great mausoleum's hall, she peeped---
and winced at Juliet's
appearance that gave her a fright,
the whole worse than its parts:
two lovers who were not afraid
to be led by their hearts;
two lovers, writhing with delight,
defied their parents' choice:
shoeless, topless; tights and long hair;
and both of them were . . . boys!
And neither one intends that they
should throttle their young lives.
We see them off to Mantua,
where their souls' union thrives.
Starward
