Submissions are invited of poetry to commemorate the life and mourn the death of DS2's guinea pig

[Threadworm]

Died yesterday after a mercifully short illness.

In Memoriam

So, farewell then
Beetle.
That was not your real name.

Internet paranoia has made me choose
An alias.
And Keith's mum says that Beetle is
A very good name
For a guinea pig.

Especially one that was black and fat.
That was probably what killed you.
Being so fat
I mean.

E. J. Thread, aged 17 and a half.

[Habbibu]

Not any more, really, but I used to. Why?

[Habbibu]

[Threadworm]

I've just checked through your excellent Tennyson piece to see if any of the rhymes are Liverpool-dependant.

[Habbibu]

Well, the rhyme scheme stuffs up in the last stanza. Maybe that's a subconscious Scouse thing.

[ProfRichardDawkins]

I'm just trying to read the poetry with the correct accent and was struggling with

Set a chewstick upon her knee

in my best Liverpudlian.

[ProfRichardDawkins]

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

Oh guinea fat
Oh guinea true
Who left my carpet covered in poo

Oh guinea black
Oh guinea sleak
You wew blessed with the fattest of cheeks

Oh guinea mine
Your short fur shone
We'll miss you beetle, now your gone.

[Habbibu]

My accent's too weird to be reproduced now - rhotic Scouse/Scottish, mistaken by many people as Irish, and varies from place to place and day to day.

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

Christ on a bike, were and you're.

[Threadworm]

Excellent, WildThing.

[ProfRichardDawkins]

Habbibu - Why is it that some people are more prone to losing their accents/adopting new accents? Because children don't get confused accents do they? Children seem to completely shed one accent and adopt another.

[ruty]

your beady eye
Unearthly squeal
Pet beget by Satan's spawn.
Deep black and carrot tempted
I wonder why your kind was ever
Invoked by man as company
But in spite of this
We loved you.

[Habbibu]

O Cavy! my Cavy! our fearful trip is done,
The cage has weather'd every bark, the straw we sought is won,
The nest is near, the squeaks I hear, the guinea pigs all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady wheel, the sawdust grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Cavie lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Cavy! my Cavy! rise up and hear the squeaks;
Rise upfor you the lead is flungfor you the budgie trills,
For you grassy tunnels and ribbon'd cucumbers --for you the thread a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Cavy! dear guinea pig!
This finger beneath your head!
It is some dream that in the run,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Cavy does not answer, his nose is pale and still,
My cavy does not feel my hand, he has no pulse nor will,
The cage is locked up safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful round the victor hound comes in with object won;
Exult O cage, and bark O dog!
But I with mournful thread,
Walk the run my Cavy lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

[Habbibu]

Good question, PRD, and one to which I have no answer atm! It's very variable, and some of it will be conscious choice, some not.

[catinthehat1]

This one is from Edward Lear.



There was a young cavy from Ryde
Who ate a green apple & died
The apple fermented
Inside the lamented
And made cider inside 'er inside

[onebatmother]

I found this for you, while I think of my own:

There was a little guinea-pig,
Who, being little, was not big;
He always walked upon his feet,
And never fasted when he eat.

When from a place he run away,
He never at the place did stay;
And while he run, as I am told,
He ne'er stood still for young or old.

He often squeaked, and sometimes violent,
And when he squeaked he ne'er was silent.
Though ne'er instructed by a cat,
He knew a mouse was not a rat.

One day, as I am certified,
He took a whim and fairly died;
And as I am told by men of sense,
He never has been living since.

Anon 1775-ish.

[ProfRichardDawkins]

[onebatmother]

they were indeed the novelty item of 1775. Weirdly that poem isabout the court of Richard 111.

[onebatmother]

Such high-bred shiv'ring in his pen

We shall not meet his like again

[onebatmother]

Alas - as now his grave we dig -
He was neither from Guinea, nor was He a pig.

[onebatmother]

That's two separate poems. Just so you know. I wouldn't want there to be a mix-up in the private-published, calf-skin-bound anthology.

To... , In Memoriam, From Those Whose Lives He Touched.

Threadie, do you also plan a monologue? Perhaps his correspondence could also be gathered?

[Zaftig]

Oh, all these poems are so touching.

[mollyroger]

With Apologies to AA Milne.

I had a little guinea pig and Beetle was his name
Sometimes I called him Alex
and he answered just the same.
I put him in the garden and I kept him all the day...
But Mummy let my Beetle die
Yes, Mummy let my Beetle die
She went and let my Beetle die -
And Beetle passed away.

She said she didn't mean it, but she never was that keen
I think she wanted goldfish, but didn't wish to make a scene
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to miss
A guniea pig called Beetle when you really wanted fish.

She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't cry
As there's lots and lots of other pets she's certain we could buy
If we looked about the pet shop for the tanks where fishes live
And we'd get some special weed and some gravel and a sieve.

We went and bought a goldfish and my mummy said ''you see?''
''It's much nice having fishes, as they don't need to poo and wee.''
And I made the sort of noises which a mummy likes to hear,
But I really missed my Beetle and I shed a little tear.

And mummy's very sorry now, for you know what I did?
I slipped the fishes in a pan and then put on the lid,
So mummy cooked her fishes - she didn't know what she'd had done.
And Lordy, how I chortled, when she ate them, Every one...

[Habbibu]

Does no-one else love the guinea-pig lead and harness?