A pun is a word/phrase with a double meaning. It can be a literal and figurative meaning.
Pun on the word ‘Grave’: 1. Hole for burial.
2. If a situation is grave, it is serious and sad.
Grave can also describe causing fear or anxiety.
A Grave Situation – Claude Morris
Shows he was drunk.
When I staggered away from my favourite pub,
It is was late.
The night was dark and still,
And I thought I'd take a short cut home,
That led over Cemetery Hill.
Not usually reckless – ironic because of
the word ‘staggered’ (line 1).
Now I'm not a hero as everyone knows,
And I have no reckless trends,
But ghosts and the like leave me cold, as it were,
And spirits and I are old friends.
Scared of ghosts: pun – ghosts are ‘cold’
and he is scared.
Pun on ‘spirits’ – alcohol and ghostly
spirits.
I wobbled along through the cemetery gates,
Shows he is drunk.
Asks his legs to cooperate/ work with him.
Begging my legs to behave,
It is very dark and he cannot see, therefore, he
And everything went pretty well, so I thought,
falls into the grave.
Indicates this is not a good experience.
Till I fell down a newly-dug grave.
Thinks he has died (‘earthy career’ – reference
For a moment I thought I had landed in hell,
to life).
Simile: compares his attempt to ‘sniff’ the
And ended my earthly career.
flames of hell to that of a dog searching for a
I sniffed like a hound for the sulphurous fumes,
scent.
Expecting Old Nick to appear.
Flames in hell.
The devil.
But reason returned and I staggered erect,
Pulled himself together.
My prison so dark, to survey,
Metaphor: he cannot escape the grave (it has
him locked in) like a prison.
And tested my bones for a fracture or two,
But everything functioned O.K.
I made a feeble attempt to get out,
But it needed no more than a glance
To tell me that in my condition,
I hadn't the ghost of a chance.
He did not injure himself or break anything when
he fell in.
Weak/silly.
Finally realised . . .
His condition – he is drunk.
Pun on ‘ghost’ – spiritual ghost/ graveyard and it
also means (. . .) he had no chance.
I reckoned I'd have a lay-off for awhile,
And when I woke sober and fit,
I'd surely come up with a first-class idea,
He decided to wait until the booze wore off.
To come up with a proper plan, to be able to think
logically about the situation.
That would get me up out of the pit.
He heard someone else approaching. This person
Just then I could hear fast oncoming steps, was also scared and took a shortcut.
That seemed too good to be true,
But ere I could 'Coo-ee' or offer advice,
Before he could say anything or give warning there
were two in the grave – the other man fell in.
In the grave there were suddenly two!
It happened he fell in the grave's other end,
With no one to cushion his fall;
But he rose like a shot with a high-pitched yelp,
And attempted to scale up the wall.
He fell hard.
He got up quickly – shouting.
He tried to climb the wall.
He was desperate to get out.
This chap was at pains to be up and away,
As the capers he cut, plainly told;
Frantic movements show his desperation to
get out.
He jumped and he scrambled and jumped again, He could not climb up the side of the grave
as his fingers and toes would not grip on
But his fingers and toes wouldn't hold.
the wall.
I hadn't yet spoken - I'd hardly a chance,
The way he cavorted about,
He did not have a gap in between him trying
to get out.
Skipped/ danced.
And I had to admire the way that he fought
To sever all ties and get out.
The speaker is amused/entertained by his
efforts.
Of course, he believed there was nobody near He thought he was there all alone,
The second man did not realise that anyone
was there.
And I got the idea it had entered his head
That the grave was becoming his own.
He thought he was going to die in the grave.
I felt a bit sad for the poor little guy,
Now acting a little distraught,
And I thought he'd relax if I gave him the drum,
That he wasn't alone, as he thought.
So I walked up behind him and tapped on his back
As he paused for another wild bid;
‘You CAN'T make it mate,' I breathed in his ear —
But by the Lord Harry, he DID!
The speaker wanted to tell the
second man that he was not alone,
thinking it would make him feel better.
He stopped his frantic movements
when he felt the tap.
The speaker gave him such a fright
that he jumped high enough to get
out.