Sir Vile's Departure from ACME Headquarters - Sir Vile
Sir Vile's Departure from ACME Headquarters
Late in the year, under sunlight unyielding,
As the grass once green turned grey and brittle,
Vile slumped in his cell with a sorrowful countenance,
His plate lacking polish and his plume nearly bare.
I have vexed my good Lady, so venturous and red,
With the tactless maltreatment of her tender-wrought plans.
Thus went his lamenting, for well it is written
That knights who are doughty ought not fail their dues.
So he steeped, in a stew of his sundry bad thoughts,
When the door to his dungeon came undone with a clank
And the gallant Grey Knight, his eyes sharp and grim,
Stepped into the nest with nary a glance,
And placed a typed paper on Sir Vile's somber plot
That deigned safe departure without dare, scorn
or blame.
Though Vile did not delay
He saw the Grey Knight's game:
This debt he must repay
Else suffer much ill fame.
Commending to memory the favor he owed
Vile lingered no longer, but left his small prison
And walked with the warden to gather his wares.
They stopped in a spot just opposite the exit
Where through a wall threshed his old thrift he recieved:
Some saddlebags sturdy, (though of stolen crowns spare;)
A sign writ in Soviet, (with a strong smell of plants;)
An old bag of olives, (its origin he knew not;)
And, behold! On knee bent he accepts the bright boon
With his penitent palms: the scarf Carmen placed
Over seat sacrosanct for Sir Vile to espy before his
last quest.
He pledged himself anew
To any task or test;
With valor tried and true
He'd toil at her behest.
His steps on free soil, fair scarf round his throat,
Our knight craned his neck to take in the tall tower
That agents of ACME call their safe abode.
It stirred up the sky with its grand, heavy spire,
And burned bleary eyes with a brilliant crimson
As its glass caught the gleam of the setting red sun.
He looked down from the dwelling where his dungeon had been
And peered in the pockets of his lost palfrey's saddle
With the hope that his host royal headwear had left
So that he would not have to go home empty-handed.
Lo, inside! A note red, and recently written,
No doubt by his damsel's demure scarlet hand.
Vile gasps in his glee, and with cumbersome gauntlets
Crudely spreads the small slip for his caged eyes to scan.
What yon note said to knight, this poet tells not,
But see now bold Vile raise his saddles to shoulder
And bear west his burden, with a spring in his step,
Sounding but a soft sigh for courtly love
of old.
Do take care, good Sir Vile
That your courage wax not cold.
You'll need all your strength and guile
For the enterprise foretold.