Mary Had a Little Lamb

Stories abound about
Mary McGarrity,
she of the lamb with a
snowy white fleece.
Trouble arose because
unjustifiably
some saw their nearness as
more than caprice.

Once on a beautiful
morning in autumn, it
followed our heroine
even to school.
Was this an innocent
corrigibility,
or a more serious
breach of the rule?

All of her classmates were
taken with laughter, though
rigid Miss Prigg was less
kindly inclined.
She was despotic, and
inflexibility's
massive authority
weighed on her mind.

"Mary," she lectured, "we
simply can't tolerate
conduct encouraging
others to shirk,
nor will we countenance
extracurricular
frolics that compromise
serious work."

Trembling, poor Mary, who
had no idea that
such inhumanity
dwelt in the heart,
tried to explain to the
disciplinarian
she and her lambkin were
never apart.

"Lambkin?!" Disquieted,
Prigg referred Mary to
Bilge the psychiatrist,
fearing her ill.
He, after painstaking
psychoanalysis,
found her "eccentric," and
sent her his bill.

Rumors soon flew of poor
Mary's infirmity—
carrying on with her
four-footed friend!
How can one answer such
scuttlebuttmongering?
Surely you know how the
story must end.

Mary was finally
driven to butcher her
dear little pet, and to
sell him for chops.
Who cared at all for the
unascertainable
cost to her feelings, for
sale in the shops?

© Jan Hodge