The Windmills

 

I wander'd lonely as a clown,
A goat on Pyreneesian hills,
When all at once I saw full blown,
A host, of old, Spanish windmills;
Beside a fort with scattered trees,
 Their ghost sails turning in the breeze.

Continuous as an army line
Marching towards the castled foe,
Of whom there was hardly any sign
Upon the battlements or below.

A milling force, intrepid throng
   With whirling sails, ten thousand strong.

The knights within were far less mad
Than he who charged courageously :
A poet could not but be sad
In such picayune company !
 I gazed - and gazed - whilst hard I thought
 How such a battle could be fought.

And oft' when in my bath I lie
In usual dazed and addled state,
They turn within my inner eye
That's wont to be a mad-man's fate;
  And then my mind with this dream fills 
 And marches with the old windmills.

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As Wordworth's Daffodils is probably the best known and loved of his poems, (with all due thanks also to his sister) it hardly deserves a parody. Yet there's nothing, including sanity, that's sacred these days..

More worthless words

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Parody and drawing © Mirino. July, 2011