Of Blue Blood and Purple Robes

The King was king,
For many a year;
And was as senile,
As the infamos Lear.

The man was young,
And quite well read;
But his words kept pace
With the thoughts in his head.

The man and the King,
Through dark chance met;
A meeting that led each,
To his untimely death.

The man managed skillfully,
To piss the King off;
The Royal Guard was alert,
The King just had to cough.

The man was dragged.
To the large stone block;
And to the city square,
The people began to flock.

The man lay still,
Weighed down by the chains;
The King mounted the elephant,
In his hands, the reins.

The elephant was well trained,
And was quite old;
And on that fateful day,
It did as it was told.

The King rode up,
And the words, he said;
And the elephant, well trained,
Stepped on the man’s head.

What happened next,
Was rather a blur;
But it was enough,
To cause quite a stir.

As the skull exploded,
A large, sharp shard,
Pierced the elephant’s sole,
As the skull is quite hard.

The elephant reared,
And the King fell off;
The people later said,
“He died of a cough.”

The King lay on the street.
Dazed, as if under a spell;
He didn’t see the elephant stumble.
And on him, it fell.

The elephant died,
From the shock of the fall;
The King died too,
From the irony of it all.

The Royal Guard did appear,
In neat and ordered droves;
And pulled the beast off the smear
Of Blue Blood and Purple Robes.