Socrates unchained
It’s undeniable it’s a coward
Who denies it rhymes with Howard.
Others are stalwart and benign.
They aver that couplet’s rhyme.
As the latter is the truth
We near the end, forsooth.
Leaving one thing left to do
Which word came first of the two?
Once every creature held on tight
As an asteroid turned day to night
And in the dinosaurs’ decline
Tiny mammals then burned to shine.
A tiny mammal upon did climb
The gender opposite of its kind.
The bottom cried , “Desist you louse.”
“The top cried, “No, I would make a mouse.
But nature was not so kind
And nature did decline
No matter the top’s persist
Baby mice remained a miss.
And so he stayed upon a mouse
And others called him Upon-a-miss
And so a word was birthed, the eponymiss.
But the kindness of mice is not unknown
As it quickly was shown
For too close to the heart is eponymiss
So not the spelling but the sound
Has come down as eponymous.
Eponymous eponymous eponymous eponymous eponymous.
Wild Bill Shakespeare came ridin’
Hot bent for leather
On a bare back horse.
Took a piece o’ paper
Dipped his quill in honey
He let drop on that piece o’ paper.
A golden word magically formed
From letters that were born
With a preordained ease.
They spelled the word
That he had heard
On a piece o’ cheese.
Two mice talking’ irony and physics,
Telling’ each other the story of eponymiss.
In an amazing stroke of worth
A big rock had hit the planet Earth
And changed the spelling of miss to mous.
Drop the E, Wild Bill, just drop the E.
It’s too close to the heart.
Wild Bill he dropped the E.
It’s there for all t’ see.
But we still don’t know,
Answers can come slow.
Was it coward before Howard
Or Howard before coward?
One day the mice will say.
One day the mice will say,
While eating a piece of cheese.