A F Harrold

The Ballad Of A. F. Harrold, Spurned In Love But Ultimately Rewarded

It’s a little known fact but in 1832
I invented the camera to take photographs of you.
Just four years later in 1836
I cut my first wax cylinder with Stevie Nicks.
It was a song I had written with the very express view
Of explaining my yearnings and desires to you.
But you wrote me a letter which was cold and sincere
saying you didn’t think I was quite right for you that year.
So in 1837 I tried a different style
and took up mountaineering for just a little while.
I climbed Mount Fuji and I climbed K2
Mount Everest, Ben Nevis and Kilimanjaroo.
But when I came back to Europe with a frostbitten thumb
you just said ‘Stop being silly,’ and started to hum
idly a tune I had never heard before
but I’d orchestrated it by 1844
and had it performed by Sir Thomas Beecham
and although he tried for the high notes he didn’t quite reach them
and you weren’t too impressed and turned your back
so I invented Polyfiller which could fill any crack
or blemish in a surface or awkward nook or corner
but your sister ran into my study and before I could warn her
she had fallen in the vat and had sunk out of sight
and so I solemnly sat by your bedside through the night
but you were at your uncle’s house I discovered when the morning
brought misty wisps of light from the sun’s languid dawning
and so 1845 was fogged with misery
and London stayed much like that until 1853
when I left for the continent on a grand tour
where I got several ideas but I didn’t know what for.
Still I built two devices both as useful as a fish is
one the dishproof oven and some ovenproof dishes
but you didn’t think these were true indicators of love
and I added to the list the finger-less glove
and the glove-less finger which when sold a set
could be useful to the working man (I was willing to bet)
but you were unenlightened and deigned not to speak
and you managed this endeavour for almost a week
less six or seven days, not that I counted,
for I had gone to Canada and been promptly Mounted.
And now I live by the law in the forests of Quebec
with a nice red uniform above my polo-neck,
which I wear when it’s cold as it sometimes is
in such a northern and an empty country as this,
and my best friends now are elks and beavers and yaks
and I’ve even spoken softly to several lumberjacks
who have been so much nicer than you ever were, milady,
and they helped me to invent a hat that keeps it shady
even with the brightest light glinting off the ice
so my life, thanks to you, is now particularly nice.