There once was a lass
born of noble class,
but my words you must heed
for she’s not of English breed.
She’s Italian by blood and birth
a quiet kind of strange mirth.
Hannah Sophia is her name.
She is nowhere near the same
as you and me, if you can see.
She’s an assassin in secrecy.
This lass of wondrous sight
is a student in the light
of day. Of amber eyes,
raven’s hair that lies
flat and long from head to waist.
She wears a bodice of modest taste,
o’er a dress of white thread.
If she take a man he’ll sure be dead
by morn, for she cares not a cent;
condemned is she, for she does not repent.
Our dearest Hannah has a tale to tell
of an innocent saint who in desperation fell.
She speaks in clear, unaccented tone,
“My friends, you all know where God sits on his throne.
There’s no need to explain that, so shall we begin
the story of the saint who came to sin?
For we all know man must sin, though they say
that they can live strong, going ‘God’s Way’
and there was one man who indeed did fail to fall.
He was perfect in almost every sense, perfect as a ball.
His name was Jedediah, a man of Holy Fire
Priest of the Old Catholic Church, you see, meant to inspire.
He preached a word so stern
it made to guilt a wordless fern.
He lived the life of honest acts
and wrote his living on Holy Facts,
sworn to an oath of celibacy.
There came to be a woman he’d see
who all swore was impossible to resist
and this man was unmoved, more stubborn than a fist;
but it came to pass that they would meet and talk,
and then, perhaps, take a short walk.
In their short exchange of word
this girl seemed to mention something absurd.
It stunned our saint to silence for a month plus half
that in his turn of ponder, he blessed not even a calf.
Our saint’s silence lasted so long
that his ‘Deacon threatened to send him along.
For a priest cannot preach in silent tone as such
and a priest is not a priest ‘less he preaches much.
In response to the threat, he turned a table,
made his way straight to the stable.
It seemed he made his peace among horses
and finally spoke to the unseen forces.
‘Apparently, Lord, my heart shall fail,
and in this time I have, I’ll tear the veil
that stops me me from reaching the title of Archdeacon
by preaching so fiercely of a noticed beacon
or perhaps kill the Archdeacon in his rest
then I’ll be the only one left as the best’
No one knew of our saint’s little plot,
but the woman of whom he had forgot.
She had indeed heard his every word
which she had spurred by one word so absurd.
That night our saint plotted and planned,
this man could not fight the Man of Sand
and there his luck fell that he found sin
and in his sleep was killed before it could begin,
by that woman so swift and still forgotten
and left the sinning saint on his bed of cotton.
And the unrepentant saint we now know fell
was sent to the Norse goddess we know of as Hel
Now what was the moral of my tale, you may ask.
Why, it may be to never leave an incomplete task
or perhaps it was that all men must truly sin
and to covet a man his power is to die within;
But for now it was simply to entertain
and tell you be wary of her by whose hand you are slain
for one must not forget the shadows do watch
with eyes of amber and poison for your scotch.
Her name is Death and she comes unseen
to rid the world of the man so unclean.”