THE BALLAD OF SIR GLENN by Oakes Spalding
 
Listen, my children, and you will hear
The tale of what happened out on the pier.
How all was lost, and then was not
Just of a pod, but of cash not a lot.
 
Sir Glenn and Sir Oakes slept very warm
Dreaming of Godwits before the alarm.
Of Dickcissels also and  Eagles perhaps,
But with a jingle their dream world collapsed.
 
"Arise, Sir Oakes, from your cozy bed,
We're going to look for a gull with black head."
Sir Oakes looked up with blodshot eyes,
"I'll do it", he said, "it'll be a great prize."
 
"Take gloves and hat and furry coat,
 Take pencils our sightings to make note,
 And I'll make sure not to takeoffski
 Without my pod and my trusted Swarofski."
 
Out to the parking lot, with baggage complete,
Big Eva and Herman they soon did meet.
For the girlies, however, they had to wait.
Goodness gracious, they're always so late!
 
Off went the caravan full of hopes
Carrying binos and telescopes.
Big Eva, the girlies, all female,
Sir Glenn, Sir Oakes, and Herman the Frail.
 
They parked the car and out they did walk
To the harbor and then to the tip of the dock.
Sir Glenn set up his scope to peer
For a red-legged gull with Black o'er the ear.
 
Through the lens of his scope many birds passed,
Some very slowly and some very fast
Not a one was the one he came to see.
Perhaps he had picked the wrong stratagee.
 
But wait! This one is different than some
Of the Bonaparte's Gulls which frequently come
To the posts of that pier to spend their time
Dreaming of fishes and nutritive slime.
 
"I sharpen my eyes, I unhinge my brain.
I focus and focus and focus again.
Is this the bird for which I search
Or didn't I pray enough in my church?"
 
"The bill and the legs, they are so red!
This must be the gull with black on its head!"
He cried in triumph, "I've got the bird!"
So loudly that even the deaf could have heard.
 
Then Sir Oakes, Big Eva, and girlies all
Peered thorugh the Swarofski, having a ball.
And even Herman, a long way away,
Wheeled up in his chair to enjoy the display.
 
But then the wind it started to blow.
It was cold- it felt like twenty below.
The dock shook- the gulls screeched in fear
They'd be blown off their spots on the posts of the pier.
 
Steadfast, Sir Glenn continued to stare
Through his trusted Swarofski at the spectacle there.
And then he paused to consider his luck.
"Tis better", he said, "than a Muscovy Duck."
 
Removing his hand from his Swarofski so dear,
He strutted with joy and issued a cheer,
"Oh Rapture, Oh Bliss ----- Oh Shitzen, I think
My Swarofski is falling into the drink!"
 
Then after his scope he made a great lunge
Screaming an oath which I will expunge
But Eva, alert to a danger such,
Caught him and held him in resolute clutch.
 
Said Eva, "To swim, you would certainly freeze
From the top of your head to the caps of your knees,
And your ankles, your shins, and the tips of your toes.
And there would be no breath in and out of your nose."
 
Sir Glenn then uttered a great many damns.
Swarofskis they cost two thousand of clams.
"Without my Swarofski, what will I do
When distant birds I wish to view?"
 
He watched the bubbles and started to cry
When out of a corner of teary eye
He saw the Swarofski wedged in the quay.
"Oh Rapture! Oh Bliss! Hip.Hip,Hooray!"
 
So it turned out that all was not lost
Just a Manfrotto pod, just a hundred in cost.
Said Sir Glenn with most beautiful smirk,
"If I'd lost my scope, they'd have called me a jerk!"
 
But now I can bird with the noble Sir Oakes 
And all of the other birdwatching folks
And go birding again in quest of a quail
With Eva, the girlies, and Herman the Frail.

2012 People section of Eva's Nantucket Page
Eva's Home Page

Last revised: Feb. 16, 2012