The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse Read online

  Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose –

  What made you so awfully clever?’

  ‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’

  Said his father; ‘don’t give yourself airs!

  Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

  Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’

  LEWIS CARROLL

  THE SEA SERPANT

  An Accurate Description

  A-sleepin’ at length on the sand,

  Where the beach was all tidy and clean,

  A-strokin’ his scale with the brush on his tail

  The wily Sea Serpant I seen.

  And what was his colour? you asks,

  And how did he look? inquires you,

  I’ll be busted and blessed if he didn’t look jest

  Like you would of expected ’im to!

  His head was the size of a – well,

  The size what they always attains;

  He whistled a tune what was built like a prune,

  And his tail was the shape o’ his brains.

  His scales they was ruther – you know –

  Like the leaves what you pick off o’ eggs;

  And the way o’ his walk – well, it’s useless to talk,

  Fer o’ course you’ve seen Sea Serpants’ legs.

  His length it was seventeen miles,

  Or fathoms, or inches, or feet

  (Me memory’s sich that I can’t recall which,

  Though at figgers I’ve seldome been beat).

  And I says as I looks at the beast,

  ‘He reminds me o’ somethin’ I’ve seen –

  Is it candy or cats or humans or hats,

  Or Fenimore Cooper I mean?’

  And as I debated the point,

  In a way that I can’t understand,

  The Sea Serpant he disappeared in the sea

  And walked through the ocean by land.

  And somehow I knowed he’d come back,

  So I marked off the place with me cap;

  ’Twas Latitude West and Longitude North

  And forty-eight cents by the map.

  And his length it was seventeen miles,

  Or inches, or fathoms, or feet

  (Me memory’s sich that I can’t recall which,

  Though at figgers I’ve seldom been beat).

  WALLACE IRWIN

  THERE WAS AN OLD MAN IN A TRUNK

  There was an old man in a trunk,

  Who inquired of his wife, ‘Am I drunk?’

  She replied with regret,

  ‘I’m afraid so, my pet.’

  And he answered, ‘It’s just as I thunk.’

  OGDEN NASH

  THE WHITE KNIGHT’S BALLAD

  I’ll tell thee everything I can;

  There’s little to relate.

  I saw an aged aged man,

  A-sitting on a gate.

  ‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said.

  ‘And how is it you live?’

  And his answer trickled through my head

  Like water through a sieve.

  He said ‘I look for butterflies

  That sleep among the wheat:

  I make them into mutton-pies,

  And sell them in the street.

  I sell them unto men,’ he said,

  ‘Who sail on stormy seas;

  And that’s the way I get my bread –

  A trifle, if you please.’

  But I was thinking of a plan

  To dye one’s whiskers green,

  And always use so large a fan

  That they could not be seen.

  So, having no reply to give

  To what the old man said,

  I cried ‘Come, tell me how you live!’

  And thumped him on the head.

  His accents mild took up the tale:

  He said ‘I go my ways,

  And when I find a mountain-rill,

  I set it in a blaze;

  And thence they make a stuff they call

  Rowland’s Macassar Oil –

  Yet twopence-halfpenny is all

  They give me for my toil.’

  But I was thinking of a way

  To feed oneself on batter,

  And so go on from day to day

  Getting a little fatter.

  I shook him well from side to side,

  Until his face was blue:

  ‘Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried

  ‘And what it is you do!’

  He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes

  Among the heather bright,

  And work them into waistcoat-buttons

  In the silent night.

  And these I do not sell for gold

  Or coin of silvery shine,

  But for a copper halfpenny,

  And that will purchase nine.

  ‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

  Or set limed twigs for crabs;

  I sometimes search the grassy knolls

  For wheels of hansom-cabs.

  And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink)

  ‘By which I get my wealth –

  And very gladly will I drink

  Your Honour’s noble health.’

  I heard him then, for I had just

  Completed my design

  To keep the Menai bridge from rust

  By boiling it in wine.

  I thanked him much for telling me

  The way he got his wealth.

  But chiefly for his wish that he

  Might drink my noble health.

  And now, if e’er by chance I put

  My fingers into glue,

  Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

  Into a left-hand shoe

  Or if I drop upon my toe

  A very heavy weight,

  I weep, for it reminds me so

  Of that old man I used to know –

  Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,

  Whose hair was whiter than the snow,

  Whose face was very like a crow,

  With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,

  Who seemed distracted with his woe,

  Who rocked his body to and fro,

  And muttered mumblingly and low,

  As if his mouth were full of dough,

  Who snorted like a buffalo –

  That summer evening long ago

  A-sitting on a gate.

  LEWIS CARROLL

  PLANTING A MAILBOX

  Prepare the ground when maple buds have burst

  And when the daytime moon is sliced so thin

  His fibers drink blue sky with litmus thirst.

  This moment come, begin.

  The site should be within an easy walk,

  Beside a road, in stony earth. Your strength

  Dictates how deep you delve. The seedling’s stalk

  Should show three feet of length.

  Don’t harrow, weed, or water; just apply

  A little gravel. Sun, and motor fumes

  Perform the miracle; in late July,

  A young post office blooms.

  JOHN UPDIKE

  I WISH I WERE A JELLY FISH

  TRIOLET

  I wish I were a jelly fish

  That cannot fall downstairs:

  Of all the things I wish to wish

  I wish I were a jelly fish

  That hasn’t any cares,

  And doesn’t even have to wish

  ‘I wish I were a jelly fish

  That cannot fall downstairs.’

  G. K. CHESTERTON

  POEMS OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

  (No. 1)

  Goldfish

  are not

  boldfish

  They cry

  when they

  fall over

  They tittletat

  and chew

  the fat

  And are glad

  when it’s

  all over.

  ROGER MCGOUGH

&nbs
p; THE SWORD-FISH

  The Sword-fish is an awful brute,

  He tears your hair out by the root.

  And when you’re bathing in the sea,

  He leaps upon you suddenly.

  And if you get out on the sand,

  He sometimes follows you inland.

  LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS

  THE COD

  There’s something very strange and odd

  About the habits of the Cod.

  For when you’re swimming in the sea,

  He sometimes bites you on the knee.

  And though his bites are not past healing,

  It is a most unpleasant feeling.

  And when you’re diving down below,

  He often nips you on the toe.

  And though he doesn’t hurt you much,

  He has a disagreeable touch.

  There’s one thing to be said for him, –

  It is a treat to see him swim.

  But though he swims in graceful curves,

  He rather gets upon your nerves.

  LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS

  AFTERNOON OF A PRAWN

  I don’t mind dawn.

  Night comes and goes.

  It’s afternoon

  Gets up my nose.

  I wish I’d not

  Been born a prawn.

  I’d sooner be

  A unicorn

  Complete with horn,

  But no such luck.

  Wouldn’t have minded

  Being a duck –

  At least I’d quack –

  But all around

  The salty seas

  Prawns make no sound,

  But a thin whistle,

  A tedious song,

  And afternoons

  Grow far too long.

  Nothing to do

  With your see-through shell.

  Afternoons

  For prawns are hell.

  I don’t mind dawn.

  Night comes and goes.

  It’s afternoons

  Get up my nose.

  KIT WRIGHT

  IT MAKES A CHANGE

  There’s nothing makes a Greenland whale

  Feel half so high and mighty

  As sitting on a mantelpiece

  In Aunty Mabel’s nighty.

  It makes a change from Freezing Seas,

  (Of which a whale can tire),

  To warm his weary tail at ease

  Before an English fire.

  For this delight he leaves the seas

  (Unknown to Aunty Mabel),

  Returning only when the dawn

  Lights up the Breakfast Table.

  MERVYN PEAKE

  STICKY ENDS

  THE BABE

  The babe, with a cry brief and dismal,

  Fell into the water baptismal:

  E’re they’d gathered its plight,

  It had sunk out of sight,

  For the depth of the font was abysmal.

  EDWARD GOREY

  LITTLE WILLIE’S DEAD

  Little Willie’s dead,

  Jam him in the coffin,

  For you don’t get the chance

  Of a funeral of en.

  ANONYMOUS

  THE LION

  Oh, weep for Mr and Mrs Bryan!

  He was eaten by a lion;

  Following which, the lion’s lioness

  Up and swallowed Bryan’s Bryaness.

  OGDEN NASH

  WASTE

  I had written to Aunt Maud,

  Who was on a trip abroad,

  When I heard she’d died of cramp

  Just too late to save the stamp.

  HARRY GRAHAM

  IDYLL

  I knew a child called Alma Brent,

  Completely destitute of brains,

  Whose principal accomplishment

  Was imitating railway trains.

  When ladies called at ‘Sunnyside’,

  Mama, to keep the party clean,

  Would say, with pardonable pride,

  ‘Now, Alma, do the six-fifteen.’

  The child would grunt and snort and puff,

  With weird contortions of the face,

  And when the guests had had enough,

  She’d cease, with one last wild grimace.

  One day her jovial Uncle Paul

  Cried, ‘Come on, Alma! Do your worst!’

  And, challenged thus before them all,

  She did the four-nineteen – and burst.

  J. B. MORTON

  SALLY SIMPKIN’S LAMENT OR, JOHN JONES’S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE

  ‘Oh! what is that comes gliding in,

  And quite in middling haste?

  It is the picture of my Jones,

  And painted to the waist.

  ‘It is not painted to the life,

  For where’s the trowsers blue?

  Oh Jones, my dear! – Oh dear! my Jones,

  What is become of you?’

  ‘Oh! Sally dear, it is too true, –

  The half that you remark

  Is come to say my other half

  Is bit off by a shark!

  ‘Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,

  Yet most completely do!

  A bite in one place seems enough,

  But I’ve been bit in two.

  ‘You know I once was all your own,

  But now a shark must share!

  But let that pass – for now to you

  I’m neither here nor there.

  ‘Alas! death has a strange divorce

  Effected in the sea,

  It has divided me from you,

  And even me from me!

  ‘Don’t fear my ghost will walk ’o nights

  To haunt as people say;

  My ghost can’t walk, for, oh! my legs

  Are many leagues away!

  ‘Lord! think when I am swimming round,

  And looking where the boat is,

  A shark just snaps away a half,

  Without ‘a quarter’s notice’.

  ‘One half is here, the other half

  Is near Columbia placed;

  Oh! Sally, I have got the whole

  Atlantic for my waist.

  ‘But now, adieu – a long adieu!

  I’ve solved death’s awful riddle,

  And would say more, but I am doomed

  To break off in the middle.’

  THOMAS HOOD

  ON THE ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN OFFICER OF THE SALVATION ARMY

  ‘Hallelujah!’ was the only observation

  That escaped Lieutenant-Colonel Mary Jane,

  When she tumbled off the platform in the station,

  And was cut in little pieces by the train.

  Mary Jane, the train is through yer:

  Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

  We will gather up the fragments that remain.

  A. E. HOUSMAN

  KITTY

  Isn’t it a

  Dreadful pity

  What became of

  Dreamy Kitty,

  Noticing the

  Moon above her,

  Not

  the

  missing

  man-hole

  cover?

  COLIN WEST

  DISTRACTING CREATURES

  SAID THE MONKEY TO THE DONKEY

  Said the monkey to the donkey,

  ‘What’ll you have to drink?’

  Said the donkey to the monkey,

  ‘I’d like a swig of ink.’

  ANONYMOUS

  A CAT CAME DANCING OUT OF A BARN

  A cat came dancing out of a barn

  With a pair of bag-pipes under her arm;

  She could sing nothing but, Fiddle cum fee,

  The mouse has married the bumble-bee.

  Pipe, cat; dance, mouse;

  We’ll have a wedding at our good house.

  NURSERY RHYME

  THE COMIC ADVENTURES OF OLD MOTHER HUBBARD AND HER DOG

  Old Mother Hubbard

  Went to the cupb
oard,

  To fetch her poor dog a bone;

  But when she came there

  The cupboard was bare

  And so the poor dog had none.

  She went to the baker’s

  To buy him some bread;

  But when she came back

  The poor dog was dead.

  She went to the undertaker’s

  To buy him a coffin;