The wild horse champs the Parthenon's top frieze
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
His toga rumpled high above his knees
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
No need to cart such treasures from the fog
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum