Ponyville & Other Poems

by AugieDog

13 - Eager Faces (ballade)

Each dawn will find me up, awake.
Not rested, no, and yet I still
Arise despite whatever ache
Attempts to drag me down, to kill
The light and warmth that flow and fill
My ev'ry crack, that make me shine
To think of how I'm going to thrill
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Attentive? No. I'll not mistake
The darling foals of Ponyville
For scholars striving to remake
Equestria for good or ill.
But teaching them, I never will
Grow bored or lazy, won't resign
Myself to dullness: they're too shrill,
Those eager faces turned to mine.

They lie, they cheat, they often fake
Disease and injury until
At class's end, their symptoms slake;
Relieved of fever, cough, and chill,
They leap to ball or daffodil
Despite the homework I assign.
I'll quiz them all tomorrow, drill
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Within my house upon the hill,
The quiet's comforting and fine.
They're better far than any pill,
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Author's Note:

When you've got something like a ballade where you're only allowed two rhymes for the whole thing and you can only repeat the one in the last line of each stanza, well, you need a special pony to pull it off. And that's our Miss Cheerilee!

Comments

[AugieDog]

For all the schooling I've had:

Over the years, the one thing I've always known is that I never wanted to become a teacher.

So here's one for Ms. Cheerilee.

Mike

[sopchoppy]

So the reviews brought me here - but your writing caught me and made me stay. Pretty much loved it all. Loved Twilight's sonnet and Applejack's Limerick, Pinkie's origin story, Rarity's Chant Royal, and Dash's Haiku. Luna's Rhapsody and Celestia's reprise.

Pony stories fill me with joy,
But poems I thought not to employ,
The delight ponies are meant to impart,
For fun they were too serious an art,
Lost I wandered, searched and scoured,
Until I found poetry in which joy always flowered.

[Lurks-no-More]

Cheerilee is a great character, and a fine teacher. I'd love to see her used more in the show, too.

[GhostOfHeraclitus]

Of all the things that are best, this one is the most best.

That made sense in my head. Honest.

[AugieDog]

3810702

Thanks!

There's more to come--I'm about halfway through a roundeau from Roseluck right now, and I want to do something special for Discord, too...

3812141

Sense is optional:

I've always felt. I'm glad folks are enjoying these. They're just a whole lotta ding-dang fun!

Mike

[Lurks-no-More]

3817339
For Discord, concrete poetry, perhaps?

[Such Forbidden Colors]

I don't read poetry very often, so this all stunned me. Fantastic stuff!
I just... it's so... this whole thing is just...
wow.
It's just SO GOOD!

[AugieDog]

3817933

Reminds me of:

"The Mouse's Tale" from Alice in Wonderland. Right now, though, I'm leaning toward him and Fluttershy performing some sort of "Pyramus and Thisbe" scene or something. But with more dancing bison, of course.

3819243

Thanks!

I'm having too much fun doing it, too, so be on the look-out for more!

Mike

[paintom_phan]

3817251 *sigh* Excuse me while I try that.

[PresentPerfect]

Fantastic. :)

[AugieDog]

7786965

Thanks!

I just spent all day writing a chant royal--like the Rarity poem earlier--for one of my webcomics, so rhymes and rhythms have been slapping my sideways for the past fourteen hours...

Mike