When Napoleon declared the French parliament defunct,
representatives beat him up. A couple hundred miles away,
Beethoven scribbled over his own dedication to Napoleon,
whom he had supposed to be a champion of liberty.
As climbing the greasy pole goes,
this wasn't exactly polished.
He was roughed-up - by politicos!
Can't blame them: no-one likes being abolished
(for sure, not these ego-bloated shysters!)
What else? Oh, in a paroxysm of rage,
an eccentric Kapellmeister
gouged a hole in a music page.
For all his smiling talk of ease and glee
(tomorrow), his eloquent implorings,
this moment always comes.
The pipes get drowned by drums.
The sleek ship of self-regard, so sleazily,
drifts free of its decent moorings.
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