Leafing through an old notebook I found jotted down this famous nonsense poem. It made me smile again so I thought I'd put it up here. 'How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear!' and I'm sure it must have been, daft old bastard that he was.
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, laymen and clerical;
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in a waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's come 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!
(Edward Lear, 1895 - he suffered from frequent depression, which he called 'The Morbids', hence the 'he weeps' lines. I sympathise. I think I might by some Marsala - it can only help.)
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"His body is perfectly spherical,
ReplyDeleteHe weareth a runcible hat."
= Brilliant stuff =D