“The Pig”
It was an evening in November,
As I very well remember,
I was strolling down the street in drunken pride,
But my knees were all a-flutter,
And I landed in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Yes, I lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts I could not utter,
When a colleen passing by did softly say
“You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses” –
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
– Anonymous
“A Sigh for a Cipher”
U 0 a 0 but I 0 U,
O 0 no 0 but O 0 me;
O let not my 0 a 0 go,
But give 0 0 I 0 U so.
You sigh for a cipher but I sigh for you,
O sigh for no cipher, but O sigh for me;
O let not my sigh for a cipher go,
But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so.
– Bizarre Notes and Queries, 1891
Waste Not, Want Not
Here’s Wordsworth’s “Upon Westminster Bridge”:
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Why start over? Wayne Carlson rearranged the words to make a new poem:
A city is lying still, asleep in the dull morning;
A steep hill towers more unto the smokeless sky,
Touching the heart and soul of God.
Bare fields doth lie in the valley,
Like ships that glideth, all silent in the river.
I saw all His own houses, now temples to the sun;
Sight at first has never felt more dear.
Who would not wear His gament, open to the calm air?
Could anything be so beautifully bright and glittering?
He will never show its theatres and domes;
Or pass by this fair Earth; a mighty rock,
Of very deep beauty, splendour, and majesty
Ne’er did seem so sweet!
All Aboard
What’s odd about this sonnet, composed in 1936 by David Shulman?
A hard, howling, tossing water scene.
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
“How cold!” Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!
The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.
When star general’s action wish’d “Go!”
He saw his ragged continentals row.
Ah, he stands – sailor crew went going.
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens – winter again grows cold.
A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.
George can’t lose war with’s hand in;
He’s astern – so go alight, crew, and win!
Each line is an anagram of WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE.
Rimshot
There was a young lady named Psyche
Who was heard to ejaculate, “Pcryche!”
For, riding her pbych,
She ran over a ptych,
And fell on some rails that were pspyche.
“Ough”
As a farmer was going to plough,
He met a man driving a cough;
They had words which led to a rough,
And the farmer was struck on his brough.
One day when the weather was rough,
An old lady went for some snough,
Which she thoughtlessly placed in her mough,
And it got scattered, all over her cough.
While a baker was kneading his dough,
A weight fell down on his tough,
When he suddenly exclaimed ough!
Because it had hurt him sough.
There was a hole in the hedge to get through,
It was made by no one knew whough;
In getting through a boy lost his shough,
And was quite at a loss what to dough.
A poor old man had a bad cough,
To a doctor he straight went ough,
The doctor did nothing but scough,
And said it was all fancy, his cough.
– Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
“Idling I Sit in This Mild Twilight Dim”
A univocalic is a poem that uses only one vowel. This example was composed by Charles Bombaugh in 1875:
Incontrovertible Facts
No monk too good to rob, or cog or plot.
No fool so gross to bolt Scotch collops hot.
From Donjon tops no Oronooko rolls.
Logwood, not lotos, floods Oporto’s bowls.
Troops of old tosspots oft to sot consort.
Box tops odd schoolboys oft do flog for sport.
No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons!
Bold Ostrogoths of ghosts no horror show.
On London shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow.
To crocks of gold no dodo looks for food.
On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood.
Long storm-tost sloops forlorn work on to port.
Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort,
Nor dog on snowdrop or on coltsfoot rolls,
Nor common frog concocts long protocols.
“An Alphabetical Wooing”
Let others talk of L N’s eyes,
And K T’s figure light and free,
Say L R, too, is beautiful –
I heed them not while U I C.
U need not N V them, for U
X L them all, my M L E.
I have no words when I would tell
How much in love with U I B.
So sweet U R, my D R E,
I love your very F E G;
And when you speak or sign, your voice
Is like a winsome L O D.
When U R I C, hope D K’s,
I am a mere non- N T T.
Such F E K C has your smile,
It shields from N E N M E.
For love so deep as mine, I fear,
There is no other M E D.
But that you love me back again –
O, thought of heavenly X T C;
So, lest my M T heart and I
Should sing for love an L E G,
T’s me no more — B Y’s, B kind,
O, M L E, U R, I C!
– Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
Next Stop …
The Busman’s Lord’s Prayer, allegedly recited by British bus drivers:
Our Farnham, who art in Hendon
Harrow be Thy name.
Thy Kingston come; thy Wimbledon,
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our daily Brent
And forgive us our Westminster
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
And lead us not into Thames Ditton
But deliver us from Yeovil.
For Thine is the Kingston, the Purley and the Crawley,
For Esher and Esher.
Crouch End.
“Ambiguous Lines”
First published in 1671, this anonymous verse came with a simple instruction that would render it into sense. Can you discover it?
I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a blazing comet drop down hail
I saw a cloud with ivy circled round
I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground
I saw a pismire swallow up a whale
I saw a raging sea brim full of ale
I saw a venice glass sixteen foot deep
I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep
I saw their eyes all in a flame of fire
I saw a house as big as the moon and higher
I saw the sun even in the midst of night
I saw the man that saw this wondrous sight.
I saw a pack of cards gnawing a bone
I saw a dog seated on Britain’s throne
I saw King George shut up within a box
I saw an orange driving a fat ox
I saw a butcher not a twelvemonth old
I saw a great-coat all of solid gold
I saw two buttons telling of their dreams
I saw my friends who wished I’d quite these themes.
“Double-Entendre”
This double-entendre was originally published in a Philadelphia newspaper a hundred years ago. It may be read three different ways: First, let the whole be read in the order in which it is written; second, read the lines downward on the left of each comma in every line; third, in the same manner on the right of each comma. In the first reading the Revolutionary cause is condemned, and by the others it is encouraged and lauded –
Hark! Hark! the trumpet sounds, the din of war’s alarms,
O’er seas and solid grounds, doth call us all to arms;
Who for King George doth stand, their honors soon shall shine;
Their ruin is at hand, who with the Congress join.
The acts of Parliament, in them I much delight,
I hate their cursed intent, who for the Congress fight;
The Tories of the day, they are my daily toast,
They soon will sneak away, who independence boast;
Who non-resistance hold, they have my hand and heart,
May they for slaves be sold, who act a Whiggish part;
On Mansfied, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour,
Confusion and dispute, on Congress evermore;
To North and British lord, may honors still be done,
I wish a block or cord, to General Washington.
– Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882
A Mathematical Limerick
The integral z-squared dz
From one to the cube root of three
Times the cosine
Of three pi over nine
Equals log of the cube root of e.
The Gentleman Bandit
For an Old West outlaw, Black Bart had a rather poetic sensibility. Born Charles Bolles, Bart robbed stagecoaches of thousands of dollars throughout the 1870s and 1880s, but even his first victims noted his politeness — he avoided foul language and merely asked the driver to “please throw down the box.”
Eventually Bart was writing full-blown poetry to leave at the scene of each crime. He left behind this verse after one California robbery in 1877:
I’ve labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you’ve tread
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
… and this one the following year:
Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will I’ll try it on,
My condition can’t be worse;
And if there’s money in that box
‘Tis munny in my purse.
When Bart was released from prison in 1888, a reporter asked if he were going to return to robbing stagecoaches. “No, gentlemen,” he said, “I’m through with crime.” Another asked whether he would write more poetry. He smiled, “Now, didn’t you hear me say that I am through with crime?”
“Geographical Love Song”
In the State of Mass.
There lived a lass,
I love to go N. C.;
No other Miss.
Can e’er, I Wis.,
Be half so dear to Me.
R. I. is blue
And her cheeks the hue
Of shells where waters swash;
On her pink-white phiz.
There Nev. Ariz.
The least complexion Wash.
La.! could I win
The heart of Minn.,
I’d ask for nothing more,
But I only dream
Upon the theme,
And Conn. it o’er and Ore.
Why is it, pray,
I can’t Ala.
This love that makes me Ill.?
N. Y., O., Wy.
Kan. Nev. Ver. I
Propose to her my will?
I shun the task
‘Twould be to ask
This gentle maid to wed.
And so, to press
My suit, I guess
Alaska Pa. instead.
– Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
What’s In a Name?
Henry Honychurch Gorringe (1841-1885) certainly deserved a hero’s remembrance. A naval officer and captain of the USS Gettysburg, he discovered an undersea mountain and moved Cleopatra’s needle from Egypt to New York.
Instead, he’s remembered for a verse by Arthur Guiterman:
In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for “orange.”
“Topographical”
An old couple living in Gloucester
Had a beautiful girl, but they loucester;
She fell from a yacht,
And never the spacht
Could be found where the cold waves had toucester.
An old lady living in Worcester
Had a gift of a handsome young rorcester;
But the way that it crough,
As ‘twould never get through,
Was more than the lady was uorcester.
At the bar in the old inn at Leicester
Was a beautiful bar-maid named Heicester;
She gave to each guest
Only what was the buest,
And they all, with one accord, bleicester.
– Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
Read It Aloud
An Arab came to the river side,
With a donkey bearing an obelisk;
But he would not try to ford the tide,
For he had too good an *.
– Boston Globe, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
Wait a Minute …
When you my friends are passing by,
And this inform you where I lie,
Remember you ere long must have,
Like me, a mansion in the grave,
Also 3 infants, 2 sons and a daughter.
– Tombstone in Pittsfied, Mass., cited in English as She Is Wrote, 1884
“To — – –”
Here’s a valentine written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1846. His sweetheart’s name is hidden in it — can you find it?
For her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the starts of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name that, nestling, lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure
Divine — a talisman, an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure –
The words — the letters themselves. Do not forget
The smallest point, or you may lose your labor.
And yet there is in this no gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Upon the open page on which are peering
Such sweet eyes now, there lies, I say, perdus,
A musical name oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets — for the name is a poet’s too.
In common sequence set, the letters lying,
Compose a sound delighting all to hear –
Ah, this you’d have no trouble in descrying
Were you not something, of a dunce, my dear –
And now I leave these riddles to their Seer.
Limerick
There was a young lady named Susie
Whose surname said she was a floozie.
Cathouse was the name;
It caused her such shame
She chose to pronounce it Cathouse.
Thanks for Nothing
Gordon Macdonald was the last British governor of Newfoundland. Despite the island’s fiercely independent nature, he openly campaigned for it to become part of Canada. In 1949 he succeeded, and two days before he returned to England, the Evening Telegram published a congratulatory poem:
The prayers of countless thousands sent
Heavenwards to speed thy safe return,
Ennobled as thou art with duty well performed,
Bringing peace, security and joy
Among the peoples of this New Found Land.
So saddened and depressed until your presence
Taught us discern and help decide what’s best for
All on whom fortune had not smiled.
Remember if you will the kindness and the love
Devotion and the respect that we the people have for Thee
– Farewell!
It was several weeks before the editors noticed it was an acrostic — read the first letter of each line.
R.I.P.
“Questions,” an elegy for a departed dog, by William Hurrell Mallock, published in The Dog’s Book of Verse, 1916:
Where are you now, little wandering
Life, that so faithfully dwelt with us,
Played with us, fed with us, felt with us,
Years we grew fonder and fonder in?
You who but yesterday sprang to us,
Are we forever bereft of you?
And is this all that is left of you –
One little grave, and a pang to us?
