Fight with a Fiend
1887
The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle Supplement, 10 Dec 1887 p. 8
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly sleeping, suddenly I felt a creeping,
Just a deadened, dull, and creeping pain within my shoulder’s core.
“’Tis the same old pain,” I muttered, “gnawing at my shoulder’s core—
That it is and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And for days each separate member of my body had been sore;
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From the doctors loss of sorrow—sorrow for the pain I bore—
From the feverish and rheumatic pain that I patiently bore,
As I’d often done before.
Up and down my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I felt a “squirming” much more painful than before—
Though by nature I’m phlegmatic, yet my language grew emphatic,
As the demon pain rheumatic paced with me my chamber floor,
Followed closer than my shadow up and down my chamber floor,
Till I very nearly swore!
“Demon,” said I, “thing of evil,” though my words were scarce so civil,
“Art thou tempter sent to tempt me as they tempted men of yore?
Is there no surcease of sorrow, must I dread each coming morrow?
Is there nothing I can borrow, buy, or steal this pain to cure?
Is there, is there balm in Gilead, tell me—tell me I implore?”
Quoth the Demon, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, for thou liest,” I cried, upstarting,
“I bethink me of a remedy that’s certain, safe and sure.”
Straightaway went I to my cupboard, like the famous Mother Hubbard,
And a bottle of “Elixir” I extracted from my store;
And it exorcised the Demon gnawing at my shoulder’s core—
Sent the Demon of Rheumatics from my shoulder and my door—
To be heard of—Nevermore.
This poem won the joint first prize in the paper’s weekly “Original Parodies” competition. The author’s name and address were given as: Mr Alfred Spencer (“Sergeant C. Hall”), 123 Harrington Road, Workington.
Return to the Quaint and Curious index for more pastiches and parodies of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.
