by Edward Lear
May I not frown and grind my teeth and growl?
E — Of course you may; but may not I growl too!
May I not frown and grind my teeth like you!
J — See Catherine comes! To her, to her,
Let each his several miseries refer;
She shall decide whose woes are least or worst,
And which, as growler, shall rank last or first.
Catherine — Proceed to growl, in silence I’ll attend,
And hear your foolish growlings to the end;
And when they’re done, I shall correctly judge
Which of your griefs are real or only fudge.
Begin, let each his mournful voice prepare,
(And pray, however angry, do not swear!)
J — We came abroad for warmth, and find sharp cold!
Cannes is an imposition, and we’re sold.
E — Why did I leave my native land, to find
Sharp hailstones, snow, and most disgusting wind?
J — What boots it that we orange trees or lemons see,
If we must suffer from such vile inclemency?
E — Why did I take the lodgings I have got,
Where all I don’t want is: — all I want not?
J — Last week I called alout, O! O! O! O!
The ground is wholly overspread with snow!
Is that at any rate a theme for mirth
Which makes a sugar-cake of all the earth?
E — Why must I sneeze and snuffle, groan and cough,
If my hat’s on my head, or if it’s off?
Why must I sink all poetry in this prose,
The everlasting blowing of my nose?
J — When I walk out the mud my footsteps clogs,
Besides, I suffer from attacks of dogs.
E — Me a vast awful bulldog, black and brown,
Completely terrified when near the town;
As calves perceiving butchers, trembling reel,
So did my calves the approaching monster feel.
J — Already from two rooms we’re driven away,
Because the beastly chimneys smoke all day;
Is this a trifle, say? Is this a joke?
That we, like hams, should be becooked in smoke?
E — Say, what avails it that my servant speaks
Italian, English, Arabic, and Greek,
Besides Albanian; if he don’t speak French,
How can I ask for salt, or shrimps, or tench?
J — When on the foolish hearth fresh wood I place,
It whistles, sings, and squeaks, before my face;
And if it does unless the fire burns bright,
And if it does, yet squeaks, how can I write?
E — Alas! I needs must go and call on swells,
That they may say, “O Pray draw me the Estrelles.”
On one I went last week to leave a card,
The swell was out — the servant eyed me hard:
“This chap’s a thief disguised,” his face expressed:
If I go there again, may I be blest!
J — Why must I suffer in this wind and gloom!
Roomattics in a vile cold attic room?
E — Swells drive about the road with haste and fury;
As Jehu drove about all over Jewry.
Just now, while walking slowly, I was all but
Run over by the Lady Emma Talbot,
Whom not long since a lovely babe I knew,
With eyes and cap-ribbons of perfect blue.
J — Downstairs and upstairs, every blessed minute,
There’s each room with pianofortes in it.
How can I write with noises such as those?
And, being always discomposed, compose?
E — Seven Germans through my garden lately strayed
And all on instruments of torture played:
They blew, they screamed, they yelled: how can I paint
Unless my room is quiet, which it ain’t?
J — How can I study if a hundred flies
Each moment blunder into both my eyes?
E — How can I draw with green or blue or red,
If flies and beetles vex my old bald head?
J — How can I translate German Metaphys-
-Ics, if mosquitoes round my forehead whizz?
E — I’ve bought some bacon (Though it’s much too fat),
But round the house there prowls a hideous cat;
Once should I see my bacon in her mouth,
What care I if my rooms look north or south?
J — Pain from a pane in one cracked window comes,
Which sings and whistles, buzzes, shrieks and hums;
In vain amain with pain the pane with this chord
I fain would strain to stop the beastly dischord!
E — If rain and wind and snow and such like ills
Continue here, how shall I pay my bills?
For who through cold and slush and rain will come
To see my drawings and to purchase some?
And if they don’t, what destiny is mine?
How can I ever get to Palestine?
J — The blinding sun strikes through the olive trees,
When I walk out, and always makes me sneeze.
E — Next door, if all night long the moon is shining,
There sits a dog, who wakes me up with whining.
Cath. — Forbear! You both are bores, you’ve growled enough:
No longer will I listen to such stuff!
All men have nuisances and bores to afflict ‘um;
Hark then, and bow to my official dictum!
For you, Johannes, there is most excuse,
(Some interruptions are the very deuce),
You’re younger than the other cove, who surely
Might have some sense — besides, you’re somewhat poorly.
This therefore is my sentence, that you nurse
The Baby for seven hours, and nothing worse.
For you, Edwardus, I shall say no more
Than that your griefs are fudge, yourself a bore;
Return at once to cold, stewed, minced, hashed mutton —
To wristbands ever guiltless of a button —
To raging winds and sea (where don’t you wish
Your luck may ever let you catch one fish?) —
To make large drawings nobody will buy —
To paint oil pictures which will never dry —
To write new books which nobody will read —
To drink weak tea, on tough old pigs to feed —
Till spring-time brings the birds and leaves and flowers,
And time restores a world of happier hours.
THE HERALDIC BLAZON OF FOSS THE CAT
THE DUCK AND THE KANGAROO IN THE AUTOGRAPH OF EDWARD LEAR
POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED WORKS
CONTENTS
HOW PLEASANT TO KNOW MR. LEAR
HIS GARDEN
WHEN “GRAND OLD MEN” PERSIST IN FOLLY
SAITH THE POET OF NONSENSE
AT DINGLE BANK
EPITAPH
MRS. JAYPHER
SPOTS OF GREECE
BUT AH! (THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER SAID)
IT IS A VIRTUE IN INGENUOUS YOUTH
THERE WAS AN OLD MAN WHO FELT PERT
THERE WAS AN OLD PERSON OF PAXO
PARODY OF TENNYSON’S ‘TO EDWARD LEAR ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE’
THE CHILDREN OF THE OWL AND THE PUSSY-CAT
COLD ARE THE CRABS
THE SCROOBIOUS PIP
THE ADVENTURES OF MR. LEAR, THE POLLY AND THE PUSSEYBITE ON THEIR WAY TO THE RITERTITLE MOUNTAINS
HOW PLEASANT TO KNOW MR. LEAR
“How pleasant to know Mr.Lear!”
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
Hi
s visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
Long ago he was one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, lay men and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, “He’s gone out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!”
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
HIS GARDEN
And this is certain; if so be
You could just now my garden see,
The aspic of my flowers so bright
Would make you shudder with delight.
And if you vos to see my rozziz
As is a boon to all men’s nozziz, —
You’d fall upon your back and scream —
“O Lawk! O criky! it’s a dream!”
WHEN “GRAND OLD MEN” PERSIST IN FOLLY
When “Grand old men” persist in folly
In slaughtering men and chopping trees,
What art can soothe the melancholy
Of those whom futile “statesmen” teaze?
The only way their wrath to cover
To let mankind know who’s to blame-o —
Is first to rush by train to Dover
And then straight onward to Sanremo.
SAITH THE POET OF NONSENSE
Saith the Poet of Nonsense
“Thoughts into my head do come
Thick as flies upon a plum.”
AT DINGLE BANK
He lived at Dingle Bank — he did; —
He lived at Dingle bank;
And in his garden was one Quail,
Four tulips, and a Tank;
And from his windows he could see
The otion and the River Dee.
His house stood on a Cliff, — it did,
In aspic it was cool;
And many thousand little boys
Resorted to his school,
Where if of progress they could boast
He gave them heaps of buttered toast.
But he grew rabid-wroth, he did,
If they neglected books,
And dragged them to adjacent cliffs
With beastly Button Hooks,
And there with fatuous glee he threw
Them down into the otion blue.
And in the sea they swam, they did, —
All playfully about,
And some eventually became
Sponges, or speckled trout; —
But Liverpool doth all bewail
Their Fate; — likewise his Garden Quail.
EPITAPH
Beneath these high Cathedral stairs
Lie the remains of Susan Pares.
Her name was Wiggs, it was not Pares,
But Pares was put to rhyme with stairs.
MRS. JAYPHER
Mrs. Jaypher found a wafer
Which she struck upon a note;
This she took and gave the cook.
Then she went and bought a boat
Which she paddled down the stream
Shouting, “Ice produces cream,
Beer when churned produces butter!
Henceforth all the words I utter
Distant ages thus shall note —
‘From the Jaypher Wisdom-Boat.’”
Mrs Jaypher said it’s safer
If you’ve lemons in your head
First to eat a pound of meat
And then to go at once to bed.
SPOTS OF GREECE
Papa once went to Greece,
And there I understand
He saw no end of lovely spots
About that lovely land.
He talks about these spots of Greece
To both Mama and me
Yet spots of Greece upon my dress
They can’t abear to see!
I cannot make it out at all —
If ever on my Frock
They see the smallest Spot of Greece
It gives them quite a shock!
Henceforth, therefore — to please them both
These spots of Greece no more
Shall be upon my frock at all —
Nor on my Pinafore.
BUT AH! (THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER SAID)
But ah! (the Landscape painter said,)
A brutal fly walks on my head
And my bald skin doth tickle;
And so I stop distracted quite,
(With itching skin for who can write?)
In most disgusting pickle —
IT IS A VIRTUE IN INGENUOUS YOUTH
It is a virtue in ingenuous youth,
To leave off lying and return to truth,
For well it’s known that all religious morals
Are caused by Bass’s Ale and South Atlantic Corals.
THERE WAS AN OLD MAN WHO FELT PERT
There was an old man who felt pert
When he wore a palerose-coloured shirt.
When they said “Is it pleasant?”
He cried “Not at present —
It’s a leetle to short — is my shirt!”
THERE WAS AN OLD PERSON OF PAXO
There was an old person of Paxo
Which complained when the fleas bit his back so,
But they gave him a chair
And impelled him to swear,
Which relieved that old person of Paxo.
PARODY OF TENNYSON’S ‘TO EDWARD LEAR ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE’
Delirious Bulldogs; — echoing calls
My daughter, — green as summer grass; —
The long supine Plebeian ass,
The nasty crockery boring falls; —
Tom-Moory Pathos; — all things bare, —
With such a turket! such a hen!
And scrambling forms of distant men,
O! ain’t you glad you were not there!
THE CHILDREN OF THE OWL AND THE PUSSY-CAT
Our mother was the Pussy-cat, our father was the Owl,
And so we’re partly little beasts and partly little fowl,
The brothers of our family have feathers and they hoot,
While all the sisters dress in fur and have long tails to boot.
We all believe that little mice,
For food are singularly nice.
Our mother died long years ago. She was a lovely cat
Her tail was 5 feet long, and grey with stripes, but what of that?
In Sila forest on the East of fair Calabria’s shore
She tumbled from a lofty tree none ever saw her more.
Our owly father long was ill from sorrow and surprise,
But with the feathers of his tail he wiped his weeping eyes.
And in the hollow of a tree in Sila’s inmost maze
We made a happy home and there we pass our obvious days.
From Reggian Cosenza many owls about us flit
And bring us worldly news for which we do not care a bit.
We watch the sun each morning rise, beyond Tarento’s strait;
We go out before it gets too late;
And when the evening shades begin to lengthen from the trees
as sure as bees is bees.
W
e wander up and down the shore
Or tumble over head and heels, but never, never more
Can see the far Gromboolian plains
Or weep as we could once have wept o’er many a vanished scene:
This is the way our father moans he is so very green.
Our father still preserves his voice, and when he sees a star
He often sings to that original guitar.
The pot in which our parents took the honey in their boat,
But all the money has been spent, beside the £5 note.
The owls who come and bring us nows are often
Because we take no interest in poltix of the day.)
COLD ARE THE CRABS
Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hills
Colder the cucumbers that grow beneath,
And colder still the brazen chops that wreathe
The tedious gloom of philosophic pills!
For when the tardy gloom of nectar fills
The ample bowls of demons and of men,
There lurks the feeble mouse, the homely hen,
And there the porcupine with all her quills.
Yet much remains — to weave a solemn strain
That lingering sadly — slowly dies away,
Daily departing with departing day.
A pea green gamut on a distant plain
Where wily walrusses in congress meet —
Such such is life —
THE SCROOBIOUS PIP
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