'The Ballad of the Imam and the Shah'

(An Old Persian Legend)

to C. E. H.

 It started with a stabbing at a well
 Below the minarets of Isfahan.
 The widow took her son to see them kill
 The officer who'd murdered her old man.
 The child looked up and saw the hangman's work --
 The man who'd killed his father swinging high,
 The mother said: 'My child, now be at peace.
 The wolf has had the fruits of all his crime.'

  From felony to felony to crime
  From robbery to robbery to loss
  From calumny to calumny to spite
  From rivalry to rivalry to zeal

 All this was many centuries ago --
 The kind of thing that couldn't happen now --
 When Persia was the empire of the Shah
 And many were the furrows on his brow.
 The peacock the symbol of his throne
 And many were the jewels and its eyes
 And many were the prisons in the land
 And many were the torturers and spies.

  From tyranny to tyranny to war
  From dynasty to dynasty to hate
  From villainy to villainy to death
  From policy to policy to grave

 The child grew up a clever sort of chap
 And he became a mullah, like his dad --
 Spent many years in exile and disgrace
 Because he told the world the Shah was bad.
 'Believe in God,' he said, 'believe in me.
 Believe me when I tell you who I am.
 Now chop the arm of wickedness away.
 Hear what I say, I am the great Imam.'

  From heresy to heresy to fire
  From clerisy to clerisy to fear
  From litany to litany to sword
  From fallacy to fallacy to wrong

 And so the Shah was forced to flee abroad.
 The Imam was the ruler in his place.
 He started killing everyone he could
 To make up for the years of his discgrace.
 And when there were no enemies at home
 He sent his men to Babylon to fight.
 And when he'd lost an army in that way
 He knew what God was telling him was right.

  From poverty to poverty to wrath
  From agony to agony to doubt
  From malady to malady to shame
  From misery to misery to fight

 He sent the little children out to war.
 They went out with his portrait in their hands.
 The desert and the marshes filled with blood.
 The mothers heard the news in Isfahan.
 Now Babylon is buried under dirt.
 Persepolis is peeping through the sand.
 The child who saw his father's killer killed
 Has slaughtered half the children in the land.

 From felony
 to robbery
 to calumny
 to rivalry
 to tyranny
 to dynasty
 to villainy
 to policy
 to heresy
 to clerisy
 to litany
 to fallacy
 to poverty
 to agony
 to malady
 to misery --

 The song is yours. Arrange it as you will.
 Remember where each word fits in the line
 And every combination will be true
 And every permutation will be fine:

  From policy to felony to fear
  From litany to heresy to fire
  From villainy to tyranny to war
  From tyranny to dynasty to shame

  From poverty to malady to grave
  From malady to agony to spite
  From agony to misery to hate
  From misery to policy to fight!

              -- James Fenton