Poetry that Appeals to Me (Lighter Than Chaucer and Shakespeare)
Burl Ives (1909 — 1995)
Generally I don’t like American music, with the exception of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and...
I Know an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly
I know an old lady who swallowed a fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she’ll die.
I know an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she’ll die.
I know an old lady who swallowed a bird,
How absurd to swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
and so on...
I know an old lady who swallowed a cat,
Imagine that, to swallow a cat!
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
and so on...
I know an old lady who swallowed a dog,
My, what a hog, to swallow a dog!
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
and so on...
I know an old lady who swallowed a goat,
Just opened her throat and swallowed a goat!
She swallowed the goat...
and so on...
I know an old lady who swallowed a cow,
I wonder how she swallowed a cow?!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she’ll die.
I know an old lady who swallowed a horse,
She’s dead, of course!!
I also like his (and others’) song Foggy Foggy Dew.
Lewis Carroll (1832 — 1898)
His real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He is famous for the Alice books and his nonsense poem Jabberwocky.
I should explain for non-English speakers that this type of poem is called Nonsense verse, so don’t expect to understand it! It’s the sound of the language that’s important. Yet despite its nonsense, it does tell a story!
Jabberwocky
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
(I once put Jabberwocky through a spelling checker; it ‘corrected’ the first two words to ‘tea’s boiling’!)
Michael Flanders (1922 — 1975) and
Donald Swann (1923 — 1994)
They were a British duo who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs. They performed in long-running two-man revues At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat. The Gas-Man Cometh, The Hippopotamus (“Mud, mud, glorious mud”), and The Gnu (“I’m a ga-noo”) are probably their best loved songs.
The Gas-Man Cometh
’Twas on a Monday morning the gas man came to call.
The gas tap wouldn’t turn — I wasn’t getting gas at all.
He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main
And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.
’Twas on a Tuesday morning the carpenter came round.
He hammered and he chiselled and he said:
“Look what I’ve found: your joists are full of dry rot
But I’ll put them all to rights”.
Then he nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights!
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.
’Twas on a Wednesday morning the electrician came.
He called me Mr. Sanderson, which isn’t quite the name.
He couldn’t reach the fuse box without standing on the bin
And his foot went through a window so I called the glazier in.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.
’Twas on a Thursday morning the glazier came round
With his blow torch and his putty and his merry glazier’s song.
He put another pane in — it took no time at all
But I had to get a painter in to come and paint the wall.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.
’Twas on a Friday morning the painter made a start.
With undercoats and overcoats he painted every part:
Every nook and every cranny — but I found when he was gone
He’d painted over the gas tap and I couldn’t turn it on!
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.
On Saturday and Sunday they do no work at all;
So ’twas on a Monday morning that the gasman came to call...
See it also on YouTube ►. (More of theirs in my selection of their transport songs ►.)
William McGonagall (1825 — 1902)
(He is arguably the worst British poet — he’s only here because I enjoy awful things!)
The Tay Bridge Disaster
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say —
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say —
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time ...and so on.
More of this drivel on the Official McGonagall web-site ►
And see this recent video ►
Shortest Poem?
The shortest couplet that forms a poem is perhaps this one. (There can’t be many poems with a title longer than the poem!)
Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes
by Strickland Gillilan (1869 — 1954)
Adam
Had ’em.
Dates
Monday: Choosy Wendy,
Thursday: Heidi.
Limericks
There’s a separate section ► on these. Here’s a typical one:
There was a young lady of Riga, [...to rhyme with tiger]
Who rode with a smile on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
Charles (Lord) Bowen (1835 — 1894)
Justice (or Just Wet?)
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.
Lord Bowen is also credited with coining the phrase “the man on the Clapham omnibus”.
