Poetry

Well, here it is, the last day of National Poetry Month and with it the last in this series of poetry-related posts. Feel free to breathe a sigh - either of relief or regret, in accordance with your own inclinations. For this final offering, I decided to diverge slightly from the pedantic and make a foray into something a bit more whimsical. After all, poetry isn't always about love, death or the beauty of nature. Sometimes it's just for fun. As an example, I present Mr. Edward Lear (1812-1888), author of the beloved children's poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". Mr. Lear was an English poet, who delighted in that most basic of all poetic forms, the limerick. Here is an example of his work:

There Was an Old Man with a Beard

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, "It is just as I feared! --

Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!"

In his lifetime, Lear produced a plethora of limericks, songs, stories and other nonsense verse that continues to delight children even to this day. My favorite of his works, however, is his autobiographical poem entitled "How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear":

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough. His mind is concrete and fastidious, His nose is remarkably big; His visage is more or less hideous, His beard it resembles a wig. He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers, Leastways if you reckon two thumbs; Long ago he was one of the singers, But now he is one of the dumbs. He sits in a beautiful parlour, With hundreds of books on the wall; He drinks a great deal of Marsala, But never gets tipsy at all. He has many friends, lay men and clerical, Old Foss is the name of his cat; His body is perfectly spherical, He weareth a runcible hat. When he walks in waterproof white, The children run after him so! Calling out, "He's gone out in his night- Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!" He weeps by the side of the ocean, He weeps on the top of the hill; He purchases pancakes and lotion, And chocolate shrimps from the mill. He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish, He cannot abide ginger beer: Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish, How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! from The Complete Nonsense Book, edited by Lady Strachey, 1912