Humpty's Folly

Humpty Dumpty danced on the wall

Graceful and stylish and eager—and yet

“Be careful” they yelled, “in a breeze you could fall.”

Then he performed his pirouette

Without a single bead of sweat,

As if he could not imagine a fall

As if there were no danger at all.

“Oh, no,” he cried, you could see the pride,

“An earthquake couldn’t make me slide

From off this place,

I’ve too much grace

By half and then by half again.”

But “too much grace” is kind of a sin. 

“Call the king’s horses and call the king’s men—

Humpty Dumpty will do it again!”

He performed a pas de deux pour une

(For on his wall he was all alone

And treated the heckling rabble with scorn).

He did a buck-and-wing!

A la mode, organic, strictly Grade-A

He tripped

On his toes

And then floated away.

The gathering crowd all sputtered and groaned.

He laughed at their horror and floated on down.

He did the Salza, the Charleston, the fling,

The jitterbug, moonwalk, the jive, and the hustle—

With big calm eyes and a cool cool smile

And exquisite control of his every muscle—until

The king and all of his men roared down

In answer to the people’s call,

With all their horses to the center of town

To help the hapless dancing egg!

And they shook the ground with a mighty shake

That jiggered the land and boiled the lake

And put the very stones at stake

In Humpty’s wall, which grew contorted,

From pillar to post, the mortar unmortared

The crowd gave a gasp; the picture distorted—and

Humpty Dumpty never got the chance to dance the Morris.

Oh, had there been some sympathy for the yoke of the performer

Oh, if they had just let him dance, or had their hearts been warmer

Had someone let him have his pride

Forgiven him for being snide,

Though he was not a man, yet he

Drawing beauty from vanity

Would’ve put on a show for the world to see

O, everything a dance could be!

But you know the story, you know how it goes

Pride is a sin that leads to a fall

As push comes to shove

That’s the truth of it all.

So out oozed the yoke all over the bricks

The egg learned his lesson for all of his tricks

The price of his pride, the payment for sin,

Or leastways he would’ve if all of the king’s men

And all of his horses could’ve rebuilt his shell

And stuck him back in.