‘Thanks!’ they cry. ‘’Tis thrilling.
Take, oh, take this shilling!
Let us have no more!’
Little Birds are bathing
Crocodiles in cream,
Like a happy dream:
Like, but not so lasting –
Crocodiles, when fasting,
Are not all they seem!
Little Birds are choking
Baronets with bun,
Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I say, to splinter
Salmon in the winter –
Merely for the fun.
Little Birds are hiding
Crimes in carpet-bags,
Blessed by happy stags:
Blessed, I say, though beaten –
Since our friends are eaten
When the memory flags.
Little Birds are tasting
Gratitude and gold,
Pale with sudden cold;
Pale, I say, and wrinkled –
When the bells have tinkled,
And the Tale is told.
LEWIS CARROLL
EVER SEE
Ever see
a flamingo
dance?
Passion
and romance
is what they adore
In the flash
of an eye
they take to the floor
Castanets
they click
with a flick of their bills
Then
paso doble
till pink in the gills
Flamingoes rule. Olé!
ROGER MCGOUGH
SPEAK ROUGHLY TO YOUR LITTLE BOY
THE DUCHESS’S LULLABY
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.
CHORUS
Wow! wow! wow!
I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!
CHORUS
Wow! wow! wow!
LEWIS CARROLL
FRANKLIN HYDE,
Who caroused in the Dirt and was corrected by His Uncle.
His Uncle came on Franklin Hyde
Carousing in the Dirt.
He Shook him hard from Side to Side
And
Hit him till it Hurt,
Exclaiming, with a Final Thud,
‘Take that! Abandoned Boy!
For Playing with Disgusting Mud
As though it were a Toy!’
MORAL
From Franklin Hyde’s adventure, learn
To pass your Leisure Time
In Cleanly Merriment, and turn
From Mud and Ooze and Slime
And every form of Nastiness –
But, on the other Hand,
Children in ordinary Dress
May always play with Sand.
HILAIRE BELLOC
THE HAPPY FAMILY
Before the children say goodnight,
Mother, Father, stop and think:
Have you screwed their heads on tight?
Have you washed their ears with ink?
Have you said and done and thought
All that earnest parents should?
Have you beat them as you ought:
Have you begged them to be good?
And above all – when you start
Out the door and douse the light –
Think, be certain, search your heart:
Have you screwed their heads on tight?
If they sneeze when they’re asleep,
Will their little heads come off?
If they just breathe very deep?
If – especially – they cough?
Should – alas! – the little dears
Lose a little head or two,
Have you inked their little ears:
Girls’ ears pink and boys’ ears blue?
Children’s heads are very loose.
Mother, Father, screw them tight.
If you feel uncertain use
A monkey wrench, but do it right.
If a head should come unscrewed
You will know that you have failed.
Doubtful cases should be glued.
Stubborn cases should be nailed.
Then when all your darlings go
Sweetly screaming off to bed,
Mother, Father, you may know
Angels guard each little head.
Come the morning you will find
One by one each little head
Full of gentle thought and kind,
Sweetly screaming to be fed.
JOHN CIARDI
POLITENESS
My cousin John was most polite;
He led shortsighted Mrs Bond,
By accident, one winter’s night
Into a village pond.
Her life perhaps he might have saved
But how genteelly he behaved!
Each time she rose and waved to him
He smiled and bowed and doffed his hat;
Thought he, although I cannot swim,
At least I can do that –
And when for the third time she sank
He stood bareheaded on the bank.
Be civil, then, to young and old;
Especially to persons who
Possess a quantity of gold
Which they might leave to you.
The more they have, it seems to me,
The more polite you ought to be.
HARRY GRAHAM
THE WILLOW-TREE
Long by the willow-tree
Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother’s screams
O’er the gray water.
‘Where is my lovely one?
Where is my daughter?
‘Rouse thee, sir constable –
Rouse thee and look.
Fisherman, bring your net,
Boatman, your hook;
Beat in the lily beds,
Dive in the brook.’
Vainly the constable
Shouted and called her;
Vainly the fisherman
Beat the green alder;
Vainly he threw the net,
Never it hauled her!
Mother beside the fire
Sat, her night-cap in;
Father, in easy chair,
Gloomily napping;
When at the window-sill
Came a light tapping.
And a pale countenance
Looked through the casement:
Loud beat the mother’s heart,
Sick with amazement,
And at the vision which
Came to surprise her!
Shrieking in an agony –
‘Lor! it’s Elizar!’
Yes, ’twas Elizabeth;
Yes, ’twas their girl;
Pale was her cheek, and her
Hair out of curl.
‘Mother!’ the loved one,
Blushing, exclaimed,
‘Let not your innocent
Lizzy be blamed.
‘Yesterday, going to Aunt
Jones’s to tea,
Mother, dear mother, I
Forgot the door-key!
And as the night was cold,
And the way steep,
Mrs Jones kept me to
Breakfast and sleep.’
Whether her pa and ma
Fully believed her,
That we shall never know;
Stern they received her;
And for the work of that
Cruel, though short night, –
Sent her to bed without
Tea for a fortnight.
MORAL
Hey diddle diddlety,
Cat and the fiddlety,
Maidens of England take
Caution by she!
Let love a
nd suicide
Never tempt you aside,
And always remember to take the door-key.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
PURPLE WILLIAM OR, THE LIAR’S DOOM
The hideous hue which William is
Was not originally his:
o long as William told the truth
He was a usual-coloured youth.
He now is purple. One fine day
His tender father chanced to say
‘What colour is a whelp, and why?’
‘Purple’ was William’s false reply.
‘Pooh’ said his Pa, ‘You silly elf,
‘It’s no more purple than yourself.
‘Dismiss the notion from your head.’
‘I, too, am purple’ William said.
And he was purple. With a yell
His mother off the sofa fell
Exclaiming ‘William’s purple! Oh!’
William replied ‘I told you so.’
His parents, who could not support
The pungency of this retort,
Died with a simultaneous groan.
The purple orphan was alone.
A. E. HOUSMAN
INCONSIDERATE HANNAH
Naughty little Hannah said
She could make her Grandma whistle,
So, that night, inside her bed,
Placed some nettles and a thistle.
Though dear Grandma quite infirm is,
Heartless Hannah watched her settle,
With her poor old epidermis
Resting up against a nettle.
Suddenly she reached the thistle!
My! you should have heard her whistle!
A successful plan was Hannah’s
But I cannot praise her manners.
HARRY GRAHAM
DEPARTMENT OF FACTS AND QUERIES
AN UNEXPECTED FACT
If down his throat a man should choose
In fun, to jump or slide,
He’d scrape his shoes against his teeth,
Nor soil his own inside.
But if his teeth were lost and gone,
And not a stump to scrape upon,
He’d see at once how very pat
His tongue lay there, by way of mat,
And he would wipe his feet on that!
EDWARD CANNON
SCIENTIFIC PROOF
If we square a lump of pemmican
And cube a pot of tea,
Divide a musk ox by the span
From noon to half-past three;
If we calculate the Eskimo
By solar parallax,
Divide the sextant by a floe
And multiply the cracks
By nth-powered igloos, we may prove
All correlated facts.
If we prolongate the parallel
Indefinitely forth,
And cube a sledge till we can tell
The real square root of North;
Bisect a seal and bifurcate
The tangent with a pack
Of Polar ice, we get the rate
Along the Polar track,
And proof of corollary things
Which otherwise we lack.
If we multiply the Arctic night
By X times ox times moose,
And build an igloo on the site
Of its hypotenuse;
If we circumscribe an arc about
An Arctic dog and weigh
A segment of it, every doubt
Is made as clear as day,
We also get the price of ice
F.O.B. Baffin’s Bay.
If we amplify the Arctic breeze
By logarithmic signs,
And run through the isosceles
Imaginary lines,
We find that twice the half of one
Is equal to the whole.
Which, when the calculus is done,
Quite demonstrates the Pole.
It also gives its length and breadth
And what’s the price of coal.
J. W. FOLEY
THE FLIES CRAWLED UP THE WINDOW
The flies crawled up the window
It’s all they have to do
They went up by their thousands
and came down two by two
The flies crawled up the window
They said we love to roam
So once more up the window
and then we’ll all go home
The flies crawled up the window
in sunshine and in rain
They do not seek for pleasure
They much prefer the pain
The flies crawled up the window
And yet the fact remains
You’ll often meet with people
Who say flies have no brains
Next time you see flies crawling
Upside down upon a shelf
If you don’t think that’s clever
Just try it for yourself
ELLIS AND FURBER
THE LAZY ROOF
The Roof it has a Lazy Time
A-lying in the Sun;
The Walls they have to Hold Him Up;
They do Not Have Much Fun!
GELETT BURGESS
STRANGE MEETING
Dear Madam,
I’m sure you’ll be happy to know
I’ll be at the station at three.
But since we last met such a long time ago
You may well not guess which is me.
And so, to ensure that I’m easy to spot,
I’ll dress in a pale lilac suit
And carry an elegant plant in a pot
(Or, if not, a basket of fruit).
Your eye will be caught by my red satin cape
Which flashes like flame in the light;
My cane will be wreathed in a length of black crepe.
I think you should know me all right.
And yet, just in case this is not quite enough
To give you the help that you need,
I’ll put on my sword and my white pleated ruff,
And hold a small pig on a lead.
My Chinese attendants should give you a clue,
If still there’s a doubt when we meet:
The face of the taller is painted bright blue;
The smaller has gloves on his feet.
The smoke from my ears isn’t easy to miss;
My aftershave’s Essence of Goat.
And, as for yourself, can you please tell me this:
Do you still glue balloons to your coat?
JOHN YEOMAN
CAPACITY
CAPACITY 26 PASSENGERS
– sign in a bus
Affable, bibulous,
corpulent, dull,
eager-to-find-a-seat,
formidable,
garrulous, humorous,
icy, jejune,
knockabout, laden-
with-luggage (maroon),
mild-mannered, narrow-necked,
oval-eyed, pert,
querulous, rakish,
seductive, tart, vert-
iginous, willowy,
xanthic (or yellow),
young, zebuesque are my
passengers fellow.
JOHN UPDIKE
FATHER WILLIAM
‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,
‘And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?’
‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,
‘I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.’
‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door –
Pray, what is the reason of that?’
‘In my youth,’ said th
e sage, as he shook his grey locks,
‘I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box –
Allow me to sell you a couple?’
‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak –
Pray, how did you manage to do it?’
‘In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.’
‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse Page 7
