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[Also in the spirit of this whimsically-misunderstanding tweet:

Which, obviously, as Grace pointed out, “I assume part of the joke here is that “The Tyger” doesn’t make sense at all, and trying to sum it up as a straightforward description of what a tiger looks like is part of the point of that joke.”]
Birdie, birdie, you are good
Don’t shoot birds, you never should
Birdie, birdie, you are bad
Shooting birds, it makes me glad
Weddings, weddings, now’s the time
To stop them and discuss my crime
Snow and ice are without end
Wordsworth is my closest friend
Water, water, there’s a lot
Because of that big bird I shot.
Shooting birds is very bad
It can make the ocean mad
The ocean’s mad, the ship’s a wreck
They put the dead bird on my neck
The devil killed my friends with dice,
and now this ship just isn’t nice.
The devil’s best friends hair’s a mess,
And she is also Death, I guess,
Water, water, there’s a lot,
And yet to drink, I guess there’s not.
Water, water, it’s so bad
If you kill birds, the sea gets mad
The sea gets mad and you can’t drink
And that’s what killed my friends, I think.
My friends all died, but I did not,
because of that big bird I shot
you fear my flashing, ancient eyes
you fear my lank and skinny thighs!
You wedding-guests, it’s plain to see
Don’t meet a lot of guys like me.
You wish I’d leave and go away
Because I made a bird puree.
Sleep, sleep, it is so nice
I wish that I could do it twice
I wish that I could be a ghost
To die’s the thing I’d like the most.
But now God wants to punish me
For killing birds, eternally
Birdie, birdie, you are great
I’d like to be your wedding date
Weddings, weddings, they’re so nice
All my friends are dead from dice.
Learn from me, avoid my fate,
Birds and beasts and man are great.
Be sure to love things great and small,
don’t kill any birds at all,
Love and pray at the same time,
This has been my ancient rime.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Badly
The Tyger makes sense.
It's about subjectivity and the sublime
and God or something.
I went to grad school.
Yall might like this story from the current ATLANTIC : "The 1798 Poem That Was Made for 2020"https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/05/rime-ancient-mariner-was-made-2020/611602/ xxxooo