I just ran across this in Hurd and Hurd’s Treasury of Great American Letters, from 1961 — kept from home on his daughter’s 10th birthday, Ogden Nash left her this poem:
My sweet, although you were divine
When you were just a child of nine,
I’d be the happiest of men
If I could see you change to 10.
I do not like to be away
On such a stupendiferous day.
Now that you’re old enough to caddie
I’m a very happy daddy.
Many happy returns and
I love you.
Ogden Nash’s 1975 poetry collection I Wouldn’t Have Missed It contains an intriguing index of last lines:
A weirdo of fifty, 347
Alone, in the dusk, with the cleaning fluid, 239
And bring me half a dozen smelts, 193
And jam the bloody airwaves on the Seventeenth of March, 199
And join that lama, 217
And leave casements to Keats and me, 332
And the hell with the first fourteen, 346
And Zeus said, Yes, I’m an atheist, 351
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage, 100
But the sensible fish swims down, 28
But you need an orgy, once in a while, 56
Fell through the parlor floor today, 214
He counted them while being digested, 379
How old is Spring, Miranda?, 103
I wish the kipper had a zipper, 321
Is hoping to outwit a duck, 221
It’s kind of fun to be extinct, 265
Kek kek kek, whoosh, kek kek kek, whoosh!, 327
Of deathless celluloid vowels, 192
The proper size for a child, 95
Thus saving the price of a bugle, 63
To tell a lizard from a skunk, 190
We can cling to our fleece, Hot Cha!, 52
Why, they’re crazy, 144
The longest is “That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition is so that he won’t have to go to the dentist, 154.”
The Boston Gazette published this cleverly seditious “Enigmatical Ballad” on June 24, 1782. If each line is read in full, the poem supports British rule of the American colonies, but if either the italic or the roman text is read alone, then it advocates revolution:
I justify every part, of King and Parliament,
Of a whig with all my heart, I hate their cursed intent;
For to support I’ll try, friends of administration,
Friends of Liberty, are troubles to the nation;
I think the association, a cruel, base intent,
An honor to the nation, the act of Parliament,
I wish the best success, to North and his conclusion,
Unto the grand Congress, the worst of all confusion;
All luck beneath the sun, to Mansfield, Bute and North;
To General Washington, destruction and so forth,
Hark! Hark! the trumpet sounds, the din of war’s alarms,
O’er seas and solid ground, doth call us all to arms;
Who for King George doth stand, their honors soon will 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 Mansfield, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour,
Confusion and dispute, on Congress evermore;
To North, that British Lord, may honors still be done;
I wish a block or cord, to General Washington.
Peculiarly British limericks:
There was a young fellow of Beaulieu,
Who loved a fair maiden most treaulieu.
He said, “Do be mine,”
And she didn’t decline,
So the wedding was solemnized deaulieu.
There was a young maid of Aberystwyth,
Who took corn to the mill to make grystwyth,
The miller, named Jack,
With a pat on her back,
Pressed his own to the lips that she kystwyth.
There was a mechalnwick of Alnwick,
Whose opinions were anti-Germalnwick;
So when war had begun,
He went off with a gun
The proportions of which were Titalnwick.
There was a young lady of Slough,
Who went for a ride on a cough.
The brute pitched her off
When she started to coff;
She ne’er rides on such animals nough. (Langford Reed)
A bald-headed judge called Beauclerk
Fell in love with a maiden seau ferk
Residing at Bicester,
Who said when he kicester,
“I won’t wed a man without herk.”
See This Sceptred Isle and Sound Rhymes.
There’s a little old fellow and he has a little paintpot,
And a paucity of brushes is something that he ain’t got,
And when he sees a road sign, the road sign he betters,
And expresses of himself by eliminating letters.
Thus THROUGH ROAD
Becomes ROUGH ROAD
And CURVES DANGEROUS
Is transformed to CURVES ANGER US
And 24-HOUR SERVICE
Turns into 24-HOUR VICE
And MEN AT WORK IN ENTRANCE
Is reduced to MEN AT WORK IN TRANCE
An SLOW DOWN BRIDGE ONE WAY
Is triumphantly condensed to
LOW DOWN BRIDE ON WAY
But the old fellow feels a slight dissatisfaction
With the uninspiring process of pure subtraction.
The evidence would indicate he’s taken as his mission
The improvement of the road signs by the process of addition.
Thus TRAFFIC LIGHT AHEAD
Becomes TRAFFIC SLIGHT AHEAD
And GAS AND OIL
Is improved to GASP AND BOIL
And simple REST ROOMS
Appear as QUEEREST ROOMS
And UNDERPASS ONE WAY
Emerges as UNDERPASS GONE AWAY
And (perhaps his masterpiece)
RIGHT
EAST BOUND
TUNNEL
Is elaborated to
FRIGHTENED
BEASTS ABOUND
IN TUNNEL
Thus we see the critical mood
Becomes the creative attitude.
— Morris Bishop
Quoth I to me, “A chant royal I’ll dite,
With much ado of words long laid away,
And make windsuckers of the bards who cite
The sloomy phrases of the present day.
My song, though it encompass but a page,
Will man illume from April bud till snow —
A song all merry-sorry, con and pro.”
(I would have pulled it off, too, given time,
Except for one small catch that didn’t show:
Forgotten words are mighty hard to rhyme.)
Ah, hadavist, in younghede, when from night
There dawned abluscent some fair morn in May
(The word for dawning, ‘sparrowfart,’ won’t quite
Work in here) — hadavist, I say,
That I would ever by stoopgallant age
Be shabbed, adushed, pitchkettled, suggiled so,
I’d not have been so redmod! Could I know? —
One scantling piece of outwit’s all that I’m
Still sure of, after all this catch-and-throw:
Forgotten words are mighty hard to rhyme.
In younghede ne’er a thrip gave I for blight
Of cark or ribble; I was ycore, gay;
I matched boonfellows hum for hum, each wight
By eelpots aimcried, till we’d swerve and sway,
Turngiddy. Blashy ale could not assuage
My thirst, nor kill-priest, even. No Lothario
Could overpass me on Poplolly Row.
A fairhead who eyebit me in my prime
Soon shared my donge. (The meaning’s clear, although
Forgotten words are mighty hard to rhyme.)
Fair draggle-tails once spurred my appetite;
Then walking morts and drossels shared my play.
Bedswerver, smellsmock, housebreak was I hight —
Poop-noddy at poop-noddy. Now I pray
That other fonkins reach safe anchorage —
Find bellibone, straight-fingered, to bestow
True love, till truehead in their own hearts grow.
Still, umbecasting friends who scrowward climb,
I’m swerked by mubblefubbles. Wit grows slow;
Forgotten words are mighty hard to rhyme.
Dim on the wong at cockshut falls the light;
Birds’ sleepy croodles cease. Not long to stay …
Once nesh as open-tide, I now affright;
I’m lennow, spittle-ready — samdead clay,
One clutched bell-penny left of all my wage.
Acclumsied now, I dare no more the scrow,
But look downsteepy to the Pit below.
Ah, hadavist! … Yet silly is the chime;
Such squiddle is no longer apropos.
Forgotten words are mighty hard to rhyme.
— Willard R. Espy
Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one, whose bones some honour claim;
No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase.
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice!
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,
He died, worn out with vain pursuit of you.
“Yes” — the indignant shade of Fop replies —
“And worn with vain pursuit man also dies.”
— William Cowper, 1792
There was a young fellow of Trinity
Who found
The number of digits
Gave him the fidgets
So he dropped math and took up divinity.
Friend John, whose (:) was removed,
When asked why he had lately proved
So free of caution and of fear,
Said, “I’ve no (*), my dear.”
— Willard R. Espy
“A Brief and Somewhat Ungracious Exchange Between the British Ambassador’s Wife, Who Speaks No Spanish, and the Spanish Ambassador’s Wife, Who Speaks No English, During a Courtesy Call by the Latter Upon the Former: Written on the Assumption That My Readers Know the Sound of the Spanish Word for ‘Yes'”
“T?”
“C.”
— Willard R. Espy
