Dragon Under My Bed

When I was young a dragon lived under my bed;
His name was Fwenderyll, but I just called him Fred.
He was an ancient fellow as dragons grow,
For they shrink as they age, as you may not yet know.

When the world was still new, ‘though not as new as he,
He emerged from lava alongside the South Sea.
In form, he was a lump of ten or twelve tons;
Even dragon moms can’t recognize newborn sons.

Slowly his stony shell filled with volcanic gas,
Adding shape and volume but without much more mass.
To float on molten rock, then to lift in the air,
With mighty wings sprouting to get him here to there.

“Aw, the glory!” Fred would sigh when he told me his tale,
“Around the world, in the turn of the moon, to sail.”
But with his first great roar, a dragon learns his fate,
With loss of heat and gases, he begins to deflate.

Oh, there are ways to add to one’s longevity;
Good diet, shed some weight, to fight off brevity.
A smart dragon can last a good long while or two
If, early on, he can learn the tricks he must do.

So, indeed, Fred watched the dinosaurs come and go;
He also ate two or three each week, don’t you know.
He would not eat an unicorn - it didn’t feel right -
But he liked to eat a mammoth every night.

But such snacks went extinct, so Fred became more lean,
And as prey were his size, they appeared twice as mean.
Fred shrank more and became a vegetarian;
That gave him gas with diet so agrarian.

He no longer had to fly and so gave up his wings.
He took up art and books, and other earthbound things.
He claimed to have studied ethics with old Plato
And taught him how to look only at the shadow.

I admit I often did not grasp all Fred said
As a mere lad with a dragon under my bed.
But if you check tonight and see one under yours,
Be kind, share a cookie, and enjoy his wild tours.