They rode by night and they rode by day,
Yet never a one of them fell,
They rode so madly all the way,
Till they came to the gates of hell.
Old Nick was glad to see them so mad,
And gladly let them in:
But he soon grew sorry to see him so merry,
And let them out again.
ANONYMOUS
A FRIEND TO THE CHILDREN
THE YAK
As a friend to the children
commend me the Yak.
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch,
you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about
with a string.
The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature –
or else
he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)
HILAIRE BELLOC
A SUNNIT TO THE BIG OX
(Composed while standing within two feet of him, and a tuchin’ of him now and then.)
All hale! thou mighty annimil – all hale!
You are 4 thousand pounds, and am purty wel
Perporshund, thou tremendjus boveen nuggit!
I wonder how big yu was when yu
Was little, and if yure mother would no yu now
That yu’ve grone so long, and thick and fat;
Or if yure father would rekognise his of spring
And his kaff, thou elephanteen quadrupid!
I wonder if it hurts yu much to be so big,
And if yu grode it in a month or so.
I spose wen yu was young tha didn’t gin
Yu skim milk but all the creme yu could stuff
Into yore little stummick, jest to see
How big yu’d gro; and afterward tha no doubt
Fed yu on oats and hay and sich like,
With perhaps an occasional punkin or squosh!
In all probability yu don’t know yure anny
Bigger than a small kaff; for if yu did
Yude break down fences and switch yure tail,
And rush around and hook and beller,
And run over fowkes, thou orful beast.
O, what a lot of mince pies yude maik,
And sassengers, and your tail,
Whitch can’t weigh fur from forty pounds,
Wud maik nigh unto a barrel of ox-tail soup,
And cudn’t a heep of staiks be cut off you,
Whitch, with salt and pepper and termater
Ketchup, wouldn’t be bad to taik.
Thou grate and glorious inseckt!
But I must close, O most prodijus reptile!
And for mi admiration of yu, when yu di,
I’le rite a node unto yure peddy and remanes,
Pernouncin yu the largest of yure race;
And as I don’t expec to have half a dollar
Again to spair for to pay to look at yu, and as
I ain’t a dead head, I will sa, farewell.
ANONYMOUS
THE ELEPHANT OR, THE FORCE OF HABIT
A tail behind, a trunk in front,
Complete the usual elephant.
The tail in front, the trunk behind
Is what you very seldom find.
If you for specimens should hunt
With trunks behind and tails in front,
That hunt would occupy you long;
The force of habit is so strong.
A. E. HOUSMAN
ELETELEPHONY
Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant –
No! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone –
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee –
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong! )
LAURA RICHARDS
from THE CROCODILE OR, PUBLIC DECENCY
Though some at my aversion smile,
I cannot love the crocodile.
Consistent with sincerity.
Where Nile, with beneficial flood,
Improves the desert sand to mud,
The infant child, its banks upon,
Will run about with nothing on.
The London County Council not
Being adjacent to the spot,
This is the consequence. Meanwhile,
What is that object in the Nile
Which swallows water, chokes and spits?
It is the crocodile in fits.
‘Oh infant! oh my country’s shame!
Suppose a European came!
Picture his feelings, on his pure
Personally conducted tour!
The British Peer’s averted look,
The mantling blush of Messrs Cook!
Come, awful infant, come and be
Dressed, if in nothing else, in me.’
Then disappears into the Nile
The infant, clad in crocodile,
And meekly yields his youthful breath
To darkness, decency, and death.
His mother, in the local dells,
Deplores him with Egyptian yells:
Her hieroglyphic howls are vain,
Nor will the lost return again.
The crocodile itself no less
Displays, but does not feel, distress,
And with its tears augments the Nile;
The false, amphibious crocodile.
A. E. HOUSMAN
THE PURIST
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, ‘He never bungles!’
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘a crocodile.’
OGDEN NASH
SOME VERSES TO SNAIX
Prodiggus reptile! long and skaly kuss!
You are the dadrattedest biggest thing I ever
Seed that cud ty itself into a double bo-
Not, and cum all strate again in a
Minnit or so, without winkin or seemin
To experience any particular pane
In the diafram.
Stoopenjus inseck! marvelous annimile!
You are no doubt seven thousand yeres
Old, and hav a considerable of a
Family sneekin round thru the tall
Gras in Africa, a eetin up little greezy
Piggers, and wishin they was biggir.
I wonder how big yu was when yu
Was a inphant about 2 fete long. I
Expec yu was a purty good size, and
Lived on phrogs, and lizzerds, and polly-
Wogs and sutch things.
You are havin’ a nice time now, ennyhow –
Don’t have nothing to do but lay oph.
And ete kats and rabbits, and stic
Out yure tung and twist yur tale.
I wunder if yu ever swollered a man
Without takin oph his butes. If there was
Brass buttins on his kote, I spose
Yu had ter swaller a lot of buttin-
Wholes, and a shu-hamer to nock
The soals oph of the boots and drive in
The tax, so t
hat they would n’t kut yure
Inside. I wunder if vittles taste
Good all the way down. I expec so –
At leest, fur 6 or 7 fete.
You are so mighty long, I shud thynk
If your tale was kold, yure hed
Woodent no it till the next day,
But it’s hard tu tell: snaix is snaix.
ANONYMOUS
S F
From my city bed in the dawn I see a raccoon
On my neighbour’s roof.
He walks along in his wisdom in the gutter,
And passes from view
On his way to his striped spaceship to doff his disguise
And return to Mars
As a Martian
Raccoon.
ERNEST LEVERETT
THE MAD HATTER’S SONG
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle –
LEWIS CARROLL
THE DEDICATED TRAVELLER
ANFRUCA
(AN – FROO’KA)
When I go to Anfruca (which is very, very far –
too far for a bicycle, too far for a car)
I always take a bucket and I always take a spade,
for we may be gathering sponges and we may be digging jade
in Anfruca where I go
(near the crow).
In Anfruca there are oogans and they live among the trees,
and some of them are all of them; they do just as they please.
They wheel their wheelbarrows in the wheelbarrow races
and they always carry bookmarks so they never lose their places
in Anfruca where I go
(near the crow).
That’s where Charlie Everybody and his brother spend the summer
with a lightning bug to read by and a bullfrog for a drummer.
They march with all the oogans when they do Anfrucan walking
and they spell out words in pebbles so the crow won’t hear them talking
in Anfruca where I go
(near the crow).
Do you know how the crow
always knows
when he goes
to his house how to go?
Well, he knows he must go
through Anfruca (fast or slow)
till he sees the name of Crow.
Now you know.
RUSSELL HOBAN
THE OWL AND THE PUSSY-CAT
[I]
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’
[II]
Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
[III]
‘Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
EDWARD LEAR
THE ISLAND OF LLINCE
The island of Llince
is covered in chintz
printed in patterns
of rhubarb and quince.
The King who once lived there
has not been seen since
they wrapped up his kingdom
in fathoms of chintz.
N. M. BODECKER
ON THE NING NANG NONG
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
And the Monkeys all say Boo!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea-pots Jibber Jabber Joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang!
And you just can’t catch ’em when they do!
So it’s Ning Nang Nong!
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning!
Trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang!
The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong,
Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
SPIKE MILLIGAN
THE JUMBLIES
[I]
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[II]
They sailed in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong
In a Sieve to sail so fast!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[III]
The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[IV]
And all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade of the mountains brown.
‘O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the mountains brown!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[V]
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
[VI]
And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!
For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore’;
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And every one said, ‘If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve, –
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’