BEASTLY TALES

QUIET AS A GRAVE

Percival had been unwilling to pay rent for a home.
He preferred keeping his money, and outdoors to roam.
Being a street sleeper, he felt neither safe nor free.
So he determined to set up camp in a cemetery.
With cemetery neighbours, he never found fault.
So he pitched up camp near a burial vault!
He found this to be neither dismal nor gloomy.
Quiet, peaceful, open space, indeed, very roomy.
He hung his coat from a monument sepulchral,
It’s lively expression never seemed dull.
As he was towards mislaying things prone,
He laid out his belongings on a wide tombstone.

He found keys, from a pocket they’d slipped.
Fortuitously, they were keys to a crypt.
So, at last, from winter snows he had shelter.
And, should it rain, into the crypt, helter skelter.
Funerals tended to generate a crowd,
But they were usually quiet, no never loud!
Often fresh flowers, to make heart sing out joy!
Percival thought himself a most fortunate boy!
Each morning he tidied his things,
And secreted them in a hedge, what pleasure tidiness brings.
Most visitors came only by day.
Percival considered a stall, to make people pay.
But he realized charity does begin at Home.
And the cemetery was now, indeed, his home, not to roam!