River Fable (for T. S.)

T. S. (not Eliot, but a former colleague who lost his teaching position, his family, and his home to alcoholism) was an entertaining lecturer and conversationalist, and I borrowed the main idea of this fable from a comment T. made one day when he was holding forth on various topics from abnormal psychology: "Alcoholism is a cunning beast ."

Sir Scorpion, as sly as gin,
Said: "Frog, I need a ride.
I do not like the place I'm in.
I like the other side."

And Goodman Frog, as sane as ale,
Said: "Sir, you must be daft.
No scorpion with stinging tail
Will use my back as raft.

For, noble sir, once we're afloat
You'd plunge your poisoned dart
Into my unprotected throat
And stop my little heart."

"What do you take me for?" quoth he,
The lord of field and town.
"If I should prick you, you must see
That both of us would drown."

The Scorpion, as vain as wine,
Was to the manor born.
Odd as vodka was the line
Of Frog, whose will was torn.

Frog pondered for a moment; and,
As trusting as cold beer,
He said: "Oh, master of this land,
I was full wrong to fear."

And so they mounted up to swim
The swollen springtime flood.
Ah, Fate is certain! Fate is grim!
It's written in heart's blood!

Half-way across the April stream,
Sir Scorpion -- he struck!
Cried Frog: "Oh, let this be a dream!"
But Frog was out of luck!

Laughed Scorpion, as Froggy died:
"No dream! And, furthermore,
You made the choice. You could decide."
He calmly swam to shore.

He reeled old Froggy's carcass in,
As strong as alcohol,
And dined on frog-legs stewed in gin.
Frog's head's now on his wall.

There is no moral to all this.
There's merely the suggestion
That the end of folly is. . .
Scorpion ingestion!

-- Warren F. O'Rourke, 1992

"A suitably mounted frog's head
is a splendid addition to the
walls of your trophy room."