WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A BAT

Many many years ago, when I was but a youth
I studied to all hours in a frantic search for Truth
I was sitting in my study, 'midst the books that I had read
When I glanced out of the window, and a bat flew overhead
And I thought:

What is it like to be a bat?
Oh, if only I knew that!
I could probably explain
All the secrets of the brain
If I knew what it was like to be a bat

It seemed to me the answer to the riddle of the mind
Would be found in the experience of those least like humankind
In unfamiliar qualia, like those of the bat who hears
The echo of an insect in its ultrasonic ears
And I thought:

What is it like to be a bat?
Oh, if only I knew that!
I could be more self-aware
I could become department chair!
If I knew what it was like to be a bat

It turned into a passion, then an all-consuming mania
My research took me far and wide, till I reached Transylvania
And there beneath a castle tossed by storms and lost in mist
The townspeople declared the local noble could assist
Could tell me:

What it was like to be a bat?
Oh, if only I knew that!
I could see with different eyes
I could win a Nobel Prize!
If I knew what it was like to be a bat

The noble said he'd help me, and I babbled out my thanks
He responded with a smile, and it looked a lot like fangs
I really don't remember much that happened after that
But when I awoke that evening, I could turn into a bat.

What is it like to be a bat?
Oh, I finally know that!
Now I sleep within a coffin
And don't see the sun too often
But I know what it's like to be a bat

What is it like to be a bat?
Oh, I'm an expert on that
I was bookish once, and stuffy
Now I live in fear of Buffy
But I know what it's like to be a bat