“Correction”

The burdens of the world
on my back
lighten the world
not a whit while
removing them greatly
decreases my specific
gravity

— A.R. Ammons

Political Science

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discurso_funebre_pericles.PNG

Democracy works (entre nous) —
When a knowing intelligent few
Tell the people: “You rule!”
And each plebian fool
Says: “Right, Guv’nor, what must we do?”

— W. Stewart

Philosophical Limericks

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Hume.jpg

Cried the maid: “You must marry me, Hume!”
A statement that made David fume.
He said: “In cause and effect,
There is a defect;
That it’s mine you can only assume.”

— P.W.R. Foot

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury thought
Life was nasty and brutish and short;
But contracts, once made,
Would come to our aid,
And ensure modest comfort — at court.

— Peter Alexander

There was a young man who said: “Ayer
Has answered the atheist’s prayer,
For a Hell one can’t verify
Surely can’t terrify —
At least till you know you are there.”

— Anonymous

Scattered Stars

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

That’s Walt Whitman. In 2000, mathematician Mike Keith noted a similar idea in Psalm 19:1-6:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

So he married them by rearranging the psalm’s letters:

When I had listened to the erudite astronomer,
When his high thoughts were arranged and charted before me,
When I was shown the length and breadth and height of it,
The Earth, the horned Moon, the chariot of fire,
The hundredth flight of the shuttle through heavyish air,
How soon, mysteriously, I became sad and sick,
Had to wander out, ousted, charging through the forest,
Joining the sure chaos here in a foreign heath,
Having forgotten the vocation of the learned man,
And in the mystic clearing, once more looked up
In perfect silence at the sermon in the stars.

(Michael Keith, “Anagramming the Bible,” Word Ways 33:3 [August 2000], 180-185.)

Autumnal

There was a young fellow called Hall,
Who fell in the spring in the fall;
‘Twould have been a sad thing
Had he died in the spring,
But he didn’t, he died in the fall.

— Anonymous

Abstract

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hamlet_play_scene_cropped.png

Prince Hamlet thought uncle a traitor
For having it off with his Mater;
Revenge Dad or not —
That’s the gist of the plot —
And he did — nine soliloquies later.

— Stanley J. Sharpless