Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle had much in common, but never met. In this tale in verse, they switch places on awakening, to general confusion. Here’s how it begins.

SLEEPING BEAUTY AND RIP VAN WINKLE

Sleeping Beauty, Rip Van Winkle,
Slept beneath the wheeling twinkle
Of the starry sky on high,
Slept as decades drifted by,
She on down and he in heather—
For they did not sleep together.
Belle, a princess off in France,
Had, by tragic happenstance,
So antagonized some fairy
That the latter cast a very
Nasty narcoleptic spell
On poor unsuspecting Belle.
Spinning one day, Belle got spindled,
Whereupon her forces dwindled,
Then subsided in a doze.
There she lay in chill repose,
As did every maid and vassal
In that melancholy castle,
Cursed to hibernate like this
Till a prince could plant a kiss.
Far across the wide Atlantic,
Winkle’s tale was less romantic…