And when the Dragon saw what had transpired,
The dreadful, monstrous Beast drew nigh to hand,
Its blazing eyes, their monstrous flames afire,
Its huge long tail three furlongs spanned
‘Neath flaggy wings which shadowed all the land;
The clouds before him fled for terror great,
He’d bow to none, he cried, he was too grand;
Trebly augmented was his furious hate;
He loudly brayed ‘gainst the scales of Fate.
The puissant shaft slipped ‘neath the Dragon’s wing,
From which a spate of gory blood did flow,
A cut full wide in scaly hide, a piercing sting
That brought the baleful monster vast full low;
He raged, aghast to see his vaunted power go,
Democracy, he held, was nothing but a bawd,
To the victor all he wished was woe,
The final count, he cried, was clearly flawed,
But soon we’ll see who is the flagrant fraud.
And now that the direful fiend is finally shed,
A fair and temperate, calmly knight strides forth
To readdress the nation’s blue and red,
To reassure the west and east and south and north,
A victor fain to prove his attested worth,
Now that the Dragon’s trumped up claims have ceased.
Thanksgiving toasts were to life, rebirth,
To Joe, to Jill, to sanity and peace,
To the conquest of the blasphemous Beast.
Jack Graves (After Edmund Spenser)