217. “Like a thunderbold, he farts.”

April 15, 2010

Q: It seems to me there was a peom in National Lampoon that ended with the line, “And like a thunderbolt he farted.” Do you know anything about that, and where I can geta copy of it?

A: Thanks to the magic of OCR’d PDF (from the National Lampoon Complete DVD-ROM), it was easy to find with a text search:

Sirs:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the earth in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from the mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt, he farts.
—Al Tennyson
Westminster Abbey
London, England

It appeared in the Letters section of the January 1974 (Animals) issue. Several subsequent letters on the same page make reference to it as well, arguing whether it is really “farts” or “falls” and so on.

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