Object Lesson

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote this mnemonic poem for his son Derwent in 1807 — each line is written in the foot it describes:

Trōchĕe trīps frŏm lōng tŏ shōrt;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slōw Spōndēe stālks, strōng fōot!, yet ill able
Ēvĕr tŏ cōme ŭp wĭth Dācty̆l trĭsȳllăblĕ.
Ĭāmbĭcs mārch frŏm shōrt tŏ lōng.
Wĭth ă lēap ănd ă bōund thĕ swĭft Ānăpĕsts thrōng.
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Ămphībrăchy̆s hāstes wĭth ă stātely̆ stride —
Fīrst ănd lāst bēĭng lōng, mīddlĕ shōrt, Amphĭmācer
Strīkes hĭs thūndērĭng hōofs līke ă prōud hīgh-brĕd Rācer.

If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet —
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S.T. Coleridge.

“A Memory”

When I was as high as that
I saw a poet in his hat.
I think the poet must have smiled
At such a solemn gazing child.

Now wasn’t it a funny thing
To get a sight of J.M. Synge,
And notice nothing but his hat?
Yet life is often queer like that.

— L.A.G. Strong

“Apex”

The lion tamers wrestle with the lions in a cage,
With but a fragile whip they dare their charges’ feral rage.
They put their heads in tigers’ mouths and do not flinch a grain,
But … they never tried to take a cat five hundred miles to Maine.

You hunters who bring back alive from Afric’s roaring shore
The nilghai and the elephant, the rhino and the boar;
Who load them on a steamer and evince no sign of strain —
Let’s see you drive a cat five hundred miles to Maine.

Go cope with your rhinoceros bare-handed and alone,
Or kick a famished grizzly if for harmless fun you hone,
Or aggravate a timber wolf with pokings of a cane,
But do NOT try to drive a cat five hundred mile to Maine.

There is no word, there is no tongue, there is no ink to tell
One tenth of what one cat can raise of concentrated hell,
When after two hours’ driving to mistaken qualms you yield
And take poor puss to stretch her limbs in some adjacent field.

And if you’ve done the things set forth in stanzas two and three,
You stand a chance, when Krazy from the leash has wriggled free
(Provided you are clad in steel with hat and gloves to match),
To get her back into the car without a bite or scratch.

Ye lion tamers, naturalists, and big-game hunters eke,
When I’m around be chary of your tendency to speak.
To hear you boast your petty deeds gives me a shooting pain
For I have driven Krazy — phew! — five hundred miles to Maine!

— Baron Ireland

“An Hellespont of Cream”

If there were, O! an Hellespont of cream
Between us, milk-white Mistress, I would swim
To you, to show to both my love’s extreme,
Leander-like, — yea, dive from brim to brim.
But met I with a butter’d pippin-pie
Floating upon’t, that would I make my boat,
To waft me to you without jeopardy:
Though sea-sick I might be while it did float.
Yet if a storm should rise, by night or day,
Of sugar snows or hail of care-aways,
Then if I found a pancake in my way,
It like a plank should bear me to your quays,
Which having found, if they tobacco kept,
The smoke should dry me well before I slept.

— John Davies of Hereford, 1598

“The Anatomy of Humor”

“What is funny?” you ask, my child,
Crinkling your bright-blue eye.
“Ah, that is a curious question indeed,”
Musing, I make reply.

“Contusions are funny, not open wounds,
And automobiles that go
Crash into trees by the highwayside;
Industrial incidents, no.

“The habit of drink is a hundred per cent,
But drug addiction is nil.
A nervous breakdown will get no laughs;
Insanity surely will.

“Humor, aloof from the cigarette,
Inhabits the droll cigar;
The middle-aged are not very funny;
The young and the old, they are.

“So the funniest thing in the world should be
A grandsire, drunk, insane,
Maimed in a motor accident,
And enduring moderate pain.

“But why do you scream and yell, my child?
Here comes your mother, my honey,
To comfort you and to lecture me
For trying, she’ll say, to be funny.”

— Morris Bishop

“The Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup”

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvAOAAAAQAAJ

Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy checks Augustus had;
And every body saw with joy
The plump and hearty healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter’s day,
He scream’d out — “Take the soup away!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day!”

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvAOAAAAQAAJ

Next day, now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still —
“Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvAOAAAAQAAJ

The third day comes; Oh what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able, —
“Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvAOAAAAQAAJ

Look at him, now the fourth day’s come!
He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;
He’s like a little bit of thread,
And on the fifth day, he was — dead!

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvAOAAAAQAAJ

— Heinrich Hoffmann, The Struwwelpeter Painting Book, 1900