MASTERPIECE #2985

/// Who shall rightfully rule? One must cull
those deemed worthy from those weak or dull.
Stone-faced Esmond kneels down;
Beatrix tries for the Crown,
but she can’t pull the sword from his skull.

/// Teenage Beatrix, here out of duty,
not yet grown, was a four foot tall cutie.
Henry, down on the floor,
is, (barefoot), six feet four.
He kneels lower to stare at her beauty.

/// In the Thackeray novel, this scene
depicts Beatrix, (who’s only sixteen),
“knighting” Esmond, her cuz,
just as royalty does,
but, in fact it was Anne who was Queen.

/// Henry Esmond loved her as no other.
Beatrix thought of him more like a brother.
At a much later date
he’d Makepeace with his fate.
Henry marries young Beatrix’s mother.

/// Some reviewers, this ending, reviled.
(He weds Mom after craving her child?)
Yet, the novel impressed
some as Thackeray’s best,
with its characters complexly styled.

/// Esmond’s older wife I won’t disparage.
They’ve no need for a crib or a carriage.
With her “breeding days” done,
she’ll, with gal pals, have fun.
Is he now in a “lavender marriage”?

/// Woody Allen has caused his fans pain
by behavior that may be insane.
It was wrong, what he did,
to have wed Mia’s kid,
but it wasn’t her Mom, (Tarzan’s Jane).