The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse Read online

  To see a bird picking at fruit,

  is no news;

  But to see a dog playing the flute,

  is strange indeed!

  You see I am playing here,

  Too, too, too, too;

  When I’ve done with my flute,

  I’ll give it to you.

  To see a man get a boat,

  is no news;

  But to see a man jump down his throat,

  is strange indeed!

  If I once get my legs in

  As far as my knees,

  The rest will slip down

  With a great deal of ease.

  To see a good boy read his book,

  is no news;

  But to see a goose roasting a cook,

  is strange indeed!

  I’ll roast ye, and baste ye,

  But who will may taste ye.

  To see a boy swim in a brook,

  is no news;

  But to see a fish catch a man with a hook,

  is strange indeed!

  Spare me, good Mr Fish,

  I didn’t molest you.

  I’ll spare you no longer

  Than till I dress you.

  To hear a parrot say, pretty Poll,

  is no news;

  But to see a sow with a parasol,

  is strange indeed!

  Like a lady I shine,

  I’m so fat and so fine;

  I’ve a right I suppose,

  To a shade for my nose.

  ANONYMOUS

  I SAW A PEACOCK

  I saw a peacock with a fiery tail

  I saw a blazing comet pour down hail

  I saw a cloud all wrapt with ivy round

  I saw a lofty oak creep on the ground

  I saw a beetle swallow up a whale

  I saw a foaming sea brimful of ale

  I saw a pewter cup sixteen feet deep

  I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep

  I saw wet eyes in flames of living fire

  I saw a house as high as the moon and higher

  I saw the glorious sun at deep midnight

  I saw the man who saw this wondrous sight.

  ANONYMOUS

  UPTOWN, DOWNTOWN

  Uptown, downtown,

  Wrong side to,

  Goodness me

  What a hullabaloo!

  Upstairs, downstairs,

  Roundabout,

  Backwards, forwards,

  Inside OUT!

  CLYDE WATSON

  ONE FINE DAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

  One fine day in the middle of the night,

  Two dead men got up to fight,

  Back to back they faced each other,

  Drew their swords and shot each other.

  A paralysed donkey passing by

  Kicked a blind man in the eye,

  Knocked him through a nine-inch wall

  Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

  ANONYMOUS

  I SAW IIJ HEDLES PLAYEN AT A BALL

  I saw iij hedles playen at a ball,

  an hanlas man served hem all,

  Whyll iij movthles men lay & low,

  iij legles a-way hem drow.

  ANONYMOUS

  I WENT TO THE PICTURES TOMORROW

  I went to the pictures tomorrow

  I took a front seat at the back,

  I fell from the pit to the gallery

  And broke a front bone in my back.

  A lady she gave me some chocolate,

  I ate it and gave it her back.

  I phoned for a taxi and walked it,

  And that’s why I never came back.

  PLAYGROUND RHYME

  TOPSYTURVEY-WORLD

  If the butterfly courted the bee,

  And the owl the porcupine;

  If churches were built in the sea,

  And three times one was nine;

  If the pony rode his master,

  If the buttercups ate the cows,

  If the cat had the dire disaster

  To be worried, sir, by the mouse;

  If mamma, sir, sold the baby

  To a gipsy for half a crown;

  If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,

  The world would be Upside-Down!

  If any or all of these wonders

  Should ever come about,

  I should not consider them blunders,

  For I should be Inside-Out!

  WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS

  WHEN I WENT OUT FOR A WALK ONE DAY

  When I went out for a walk one day,

  My head fell off and rolled away,

  And when I saw that it was gone –

  I picked it up and put it on.

  When I went into the street

  Someone shouted, ‘Look at your feet!’

  I looked at them and sadly said,

  ‘I’ve left them both asleep in bed!’

  ANONYMOUS

  SENSIBLE QUESTIONS

  ‘Suppose the land turned into the sea?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid! It couldn’t be!’

  ‘Suppose the sea turned into the land?’

  ‘It wouldn’t happen. You don’t understand!’

  ‘Suppose I waved this grassy stalk,

  And Max the dog began to talk?’

  ‘Your fancy’s foolish. Your ways are wild!

  I often think you’re a silly child!’

  But Marigold waved her stalk of grass

  And all she had asked about came to pass.

  The land rolled up and the sea rolled over

  The waves were covered with grass and clover,

  While Marigold and her reproving aunt

  Who’d kept on saying ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Can’t!’,

  Were up to their necks in a wild green sea –

  And Max the dog said, ‘Fiddle dee dee!’

  MARGARET MAHY

  CHORTLING AND GALUMPHING

  JABBER WOCKY

  ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!’

  He took his vorpal sword in hand:

  Long time the manxome foe he sought –

  So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

  And stood awhile in thought.

  And as in uffish thought he stood,

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

  Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

  One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

  ‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’

  He chortled in his joy.

  ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  LEWIS CARROLL

  TO MARIE

  When the breeze from the bluebottle’s blustering blim

  Twirls the toads in a tooroomaloo,

  And the whiskery whine of the wheedlesome whim

  Drowns the roll of the rattatattoo,

  Then I dream in the shade of the shally-go-shee,

  And the voice of the bally-molay

  Brings the smell of the pale poppy-cod’s blummered blee

  From the willy-wad over the way.

  Ah, the shuddering shoe and the blinketty-blanks

  When the punglung falls from the bough

  In the blast of a hurricane’s hicketty-hanks

  O’er the hills of the hocketty-how!

  Give the rigamarole to t
he clangery-whang,

  If they care for such fiddlededee;

  But the thingumbob kiss of the whangery-bang

  Keeps the higgledy-piggle for me.

  L’Envoi

  It is pilly-po-doddle and aligobung

  When the lollypup covers the ground,

  Yet the poldiddle perishes plunkety-pung

  When the heart jimny-coggles around.

  If the soul cannot snoop at the gigglesome cart

  Seeking surcease in gluggety-glug,

  It is useless to say to the pulsating heart,

  ‘Yankee-doodle ker-chuggety-chug!’

  ANONYMOUS

  TYPO

  ‘Nitgub,’ said the typewriter,

  and clenched the paper tight.

  ‘Nitgub positively.

  It is here in black and white.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said.

  ‘I typed N-O-T-H-I-N-G;

  the word of course was nothing,

  simply nothing, don’t you see?’

  ‘Nothing may be what you meant,

  but nitgub’s what you wrote.

  I like it,’ said the typewriter.

  ‘It strikes a happy note.

  It has more style than nothing,

  has a different sort of sound.

  The colour is superior;

  the flavour’s nice and round.

  Have you plumbed its deepest depths,

  its mystery explained?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll take it.

  Nitgub ventured, nitgub gained.’

  RUSSELL HOBAN

  THE LUGUBRIOUS WHING-WHANG

  Out on the margin of moonshine land,

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

  Out where the whing-whang loves to stand,

  Writing his name with his tail on the sand,

  And wiping it out with his oogerish hand;

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

  Is it the gibber of gungs and keeks?

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

  Or what is the sound the whing-whang seeks,

  Crouching low by the winding creeks,

  And holding his breath for weeks and weeks?

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

  Aroint him the wraithest of wraithly things!

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

  ‘T is a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings,

  And bridal jewels of fangs and stings,

  And she sits and as sadly and softly sings

  As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings;

  Tickle me, dear; tickle me here;

  Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

  JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

  BELAGCHOLLY DAYS

  Chilly Dovebber with his boadigg blast

  Dow cubs add strips the bedow add the lawd,

  Eved October’s suddy days are past –

  Add Subber’s gawd!

  I kdow dot what it is to which I cligg

  That stirs to sogg add sorrow, yet I trust

  That still I sigg, but as the liddets sigg –

  Because I bust.

  Add now, farewell to roses add to birds,

  To larded fields and tigkligg streablets eke;

  Farewell to all articulated words

  I fain would speak.

  Farewell, by cherished strolliggs od the sward,

  Greed glades and forest shades, farewell to you;

  With sorrowing heart I, wretched add forlord,

  Bid you – achew!!!

  ANONYMOUS

  A RECIPE FOR INDIGESTION

  DILLY DILLY PICCALILLI

  Dilly Dilly Piccalilli

  Tell me something very silly:

  There was a chap his name was Bert

  He ate the buttons off his shirt.

  CLYDE WATSON

  EVER EATEN

  Ever eaten

  poodle strudel?

  It’s sensational

  with cream

  I once had

  chihuahua cheesecake

  (Or was that

  another bad dream?)

  ROGER MCGOUGH

  BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM

  I am Ebenezer Bleezer,

  I run BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM STORE,

  there are flavours in my freezer

  you have never seen before,

  twenty-eight divine creations

  too delicious to resist,

  why not do yourself a favour,

  try the flavours on my list:

  COCOA MOCHA MACARONI

  TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY

  CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW

  CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW

  TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO

  TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO

  LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN

  MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN

  ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI

  YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI

  SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH

  SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH

  BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE

  POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL

  PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM

  PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM

  BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER

  CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER

  AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT

  PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT

  COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD

  CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD

  ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP

  TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP

  GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA

  LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA

  ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET

  WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

  I am Ebenezer Bleezer,

  I run BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM STORE,

  taste a flavour from my freezer,

  you will surely ask for more.

  JACK PRELUTSKY

  THE REMARKABLE CAKE

  It’s Christmas – the time when we gather to make

  A truly remarkable once-a-year cake.

  The recipe’s written in letters of gold

  By a family witch who is terribly old.

  The rule of this cake is it has to be made

  In a wheelbarrow (stirred with a shovel or spade)

  At Christmas, the season of love and good will.

  Other times of the year it might make you feel ill.

  You must nail it together or stick it with glue,

  Then hammer it flat with the heel of your shoe.

  You must stretch it out thin, you must tie it in knots,

  Then get out your paint box and paint it with spots.

  What a taste! What a flavour! It’s certain to please.

  It’s rather like ice-cream with pickles and cheese.

  In June it would taste like spaghetti and mud,

  While its taste in September would curdle your blood.

  Oh, what a cake! It looks simply delicious.

  Now get out the carving knife, get out the dishes!

  Be careful! Be careful! This cake might explode,

  And blow up the kitchen and part of the road.

  Oh dear! It’s exploded! I thought that it might.

  It’s not very often we get it just right.

  Let’s comfort the baby, revive Uncle Dan,

  And we’ll start it all over as soon as we can.

  For Christmas – that gipsy day – comes and it goes

  Far sooner than ever we dare to suppose.

  Once more in December we’ll gather to make

  That truly remarkable once-a-year cake.

  MARGARET MAHY

  ‘I’VE EATEN MANY STRANGE AND SCRUMPTIOUS DISHES…’

  ‘I’ve eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time,

  Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime,

  And mice with rice – they’re really nice

  When roasted in their prime.

  (But don’t forget to sprinkle them with just a pinch of grime.)

  ‘I’ve eaten fresh
mudburgers by the greatest cooks there are,

  And scrambled dregs and stinkbugs’ eggs and hornets stewed in tar,

  And pails of snails and lizards’ tails,

  And beetles by the jar.

  (A beetle is improved by just a splash of vinegar.)

  ‘I often eat boiled slobbages. They’re grand when served beside

  Minced doodlebugs and curried slugs. And have you ever tried

  Mosquitoes’ toes and wampfish roes

  Most delicately fried?

  (The only trouble is they disagree with my inside.)

  ‘I’m mad for crispy wasp-stings on a piece of buttered toast,

  And pickled spines of porcupines. And then a gorgeous roast