Chookie

Ogden Nash strikes again -

I test my bath before I sit,
And I'm always moved to wonderment
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament.

Samson Agonistes

HadleyH

this is well known:



Résumé

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

Carlisle Blues

Pure Nonsense

You send him a poem,
You send him a rhyme,
You give me much grief,
When I've done no crime....

oshron

i only know the first part of this one:

'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the momerathes outgrabe.

from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, of course

Linschoten

As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there;
I met that man again today;
I wish to God he'd go away!


Song of the Ballet

Lift her up tenderly,
Raise her with care,
Catch hold of one leg,
And a handful of hair;
Swing her round savagely,
And when this palls,
Heave-ho! Away with her
Into the stalls.

Carlisle Blues

Is that "Antigonish" by Hughes Mearns

Lawnmowerman

Vogon Poetry

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly
thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"



"

Linschoten

Sorry, don't know, derived from the oral tradition!

Carlisle Blues

Thank you Li...

It reminded me of a childhood poem I learned that was similar. I have not thought about it in a while but went something like this..

"Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away"

Linschoten

It's funny how these things get around, and get altered into different forms; and then one picks up a book and finds that the original was written by so-and-so in a book published in 1890. Humorous verse is much nursery rhymes in this respect, there is a genuine oral tradition in which there is an interplay between printed versions and those that circulate by word of mouth. The verses are quite often improved in the telling.


My mother said that I should never
Play with the Gypsies in the wood,
The wood was dark; the grass was green;
In came Sally with a tambourine,
I went to the sea - no ship to get across;
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse;
I up on his back and was off in a crack,
Sally, tell my mother I never shall come back.