THE QUIXOTIC AND THE DEAD
Miguel de Cervantes
Didn't necessarily want his
Don Quixote to be a hero.
Actually, Quixote was a zero:
A washed-up fictional nerd
Who always used the overblown word
And tried to get his thrills
With windmills.
Quixote and his sidekick, Sancho Panza,
Were the laughing-stocks of all La Mancha.
Many a dewy-eyed romantic
Has been frantic...
And has fought to do
What Don Quixote could NOT do.
So it would seem
That many pursue the "Impossible Dream"
As if it were the gospel.
But for Cervantes, "impossible" was "impossible!"
PLEASE PASS THE THUMBSCREWS!
Galileo Galilei
Placed the sun at the center of the solar system one day.
When asked by an angry Pope
If it were really so, he said: "Nope;
As I contemplate the Inquisition,
I think I'll change my scientific position."
STRATFORD UPON AVON CALLING...
Is life a chore
Worth dying for?
Many a Shakespearean sonnet
Puts a spin upon it.
The tragedies of Shakespeare
Make it appear
That everybody's life and death
Resemble MacBeth.
Yet the comedies of Shakespeare
Make it clear
That everybody can laugh
With Falstaff
And merrily say
That All's Okay That Ends Okay.
PAGING MR. MILTON...
You'll be relieved
To learn that John Milton
Was conceived
In the Hyde Park Hilton
More or less legitimately,
When his mother happened to ovulate
While treating John's father intimately
In 1608.
The only cost
Was one Paradise Lost.