Comic poems

Part one: Forms

SHORTS: News item / Dorothy Parker

'Wig, rouge, honey' / Lucilius

Their sex life / A. R. Ammons

Martial: Epigram VI.57

Epigram IX.33

Boston / Samuel C. Bushnell

Lucilius: 'Diophon'

'Hermogenes is rather short'

A case / Anon.

Twins / Robert Graves

'Busts and bosoms have I known' / Anon.

'I like a woman built on ample line' / Nikarchos

This Englishwoman / Stevie Smith

Fatigue / Hilaire Belloc

Variation on Belloc's 'Fatigue' / Wendy Cope

Resume / Dorothy Parker

'Mean old Hermon' / Lucilius

The hardship of accounting / Robert Frost

Matthew Prior: Epigram

Human life

Cherry white / Dorothy Parker

Some are born / Stevie Smith

Common sense / Ogden Nash

The question / James Beattie

Company / Les Murray

Samson Agonistes / Ogden Nash

Palladas: 'Man stole fire'

'Having slept with a man'

Prophetic soul / Dorothy Parker

Two cures for love / Wendy Cope

'Eutychus the painter' / Lucilius

Ogden Nash: Reflection on ice-breaking

Genealogical reflection

Reminiscent reflection

Crosing the border

Epigram II.38 / Martial

On rutt the judge / Charles Cotton

Treason / Sir John Harington

On certain ladies / Alexander Pope

On taking a wife / Thomas Moore

Swans sing before they die / S. T. Coleridge

Juliet / Hilaire Belloc

The reward / Ogden Nash

LIMERICKS AND CLERIHEWS: Anon.: Relativity

Mind and matter

Determinism

'A young schizophrenic named Struther

Idealism / Ronald Knox

Anon.: A reply

'There was a young lady of Riga'

'There was an old man of Boulogne'

'There was an old party of Lyme'

'When Daddy and Mum got guite plastered'

Bump! / Spike Milligan

Ogden Nash: Drusilla

Edouard

Arthur

Benjamin

Carlotta

Requiem

W.H. Auden: 'A young person came out of the mist'

'As the poets have mounfully sung'

Edward Lear: 'There was an old man with a beard'

'There was an old lady of Chertsey'

'There was an old man whose despair'

'There was an old man who said, "Hush!"

Nomenclaturik / Harry Hearson

Dorothy Parker: Oscar Wilde

D. G. Rosetti

Alexander Dumas and his son

George Gissing

Walter Savage Landor

E.C. Bentley: From Biography for beginners

J.S. Mill

'The intrepid Ricardo'

'"No sir," said General Sherman'

George III

Adam Smith

W.H. Auden: From Academic Graffiti: 'Lord Byron'

'Henry Adams'

'Henry James'

'When Karl Marx'

'Cardinal Newman'

NONSENSE AND WORD-PLAY: kw rm /Euenos B

Lapsus linguae / Keith Preston

Faults / Amaru

40-Love / Roger McGough

Tenuous and precarious / Stevie Smith

The ceiling / Theodore Roethe

Tarantella / Hilaire Belloc

'In this mirror' / Guillaume Apollinaire

No! / Thomas Hood

A ternarie of littles, upon a pipkin of jellie sent to a lady / Robert Herrick

The carcajou and kincajou / Ogden Nash

The modern Hiawatha / Anon.

The mad gardener's song / Lewis Carroll

From the embassy / Robert Graves

The waif / Walter de la Mare

What the spider heard / Welton Kees

The fly / Ogden Nash

Anon.: Spring in the Bronx

A little lamb

Rillons, rillettes / Richard Wilbur

Private means is dead / Stevie Smith

V.B. Nimble, V.B. Quick / John Updike

Squeeze play / Phyllis McGinley

In the dumps / Anon.

Vendetta / Walter de la Mare

Jabberwocky / Lewis Carroll

The termite / Ogden Nash

Part two: Themes: LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Symptom recital / Dorothy Parker

For an amorous lady / Theodore Roethke

Take me in your arms. Miss Moneypenny-Wilson / Patrick Barrington

'The author loving these homely meats' / John Davies of Hereford

Bhartrhari: 'On sunny days'

'The impudence of some poeple'

'While describing to her best friend'

'He marvelled at her breasts' / Amaru

Alice is at it again / Noel Coward

A true maid / Matthew Prior

A song of a young lady to her ancient lover / John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

The old man's complaint: Love me little, love me long / Robert Herrick

Elinor Glyn / Anon.

Fatal love / Matthew Prior

One perfect rose / Dorothy Parker

Ich liebe solche weisse glieder / Heinrich Heine

Ending / Gavin Ewart

Ogden Nash: The trouble with women is men

A word to husbands

Autumn / Stevie Smith

Roald Dahl: St Ives

Hot and cold

The mistake / Theodore Roethke

Sucking cider through a straw / Anon.

The newlyweds / John Updike

On Kant's definition of Marriage in the metaphysics of ethics / Bertolt Brecht

SOME PAINS AND PLEASURES: Spectator ab extra / A. H. Clough

Recipe for a salad / Sydney Smith

Peas / Anon.

The bun / Walter de la Mare

Sonnet to Vauxhall / Thomas Hood

W. H. Auden: Smelt and tasted

Heard and seen

The 'Satire' / Walter de la Mare

The comming of good luck / Robert Herrick

Blisse / Thomas Traherne

Divided destinies / Rudyard Kipling

Look for the silver lining / Ogden Nash

Hotel / Guillaume Apollinaire

Praise is a mirror / Charles Dibdin

The nightmare / W. S. Gilbert

Complaint to four angels / Ogden Nash

Martial: Epigram V.9

Epigram IV.70

I've been to a marvellous party / Noel Coward

The party next door / Ogden Nash

Evening musicale / Phyllis McGinely

Stately as a galleon / Joyce Grenfell

A literary dinner / Vladimir Nabokov

Vers de societe / Philip Larkin

CHARACTERS: How pleasant to know Mr Lear / Edward Lear

Posterity / Philip Larkin

Henry King / Hilaire Belloc

The purist / Ogden Nash

Upon Clunn / Robert Herrick

Walter de la Mare: The tank

Miss Clegg

Mad dogs and Englishmen / Noel Coward

Lines for Cuscuscaraway and Mirza Murad Ali Beg / T. S. Eliot

POLITICS: Yes and no / Ogden Nash

the latest decalogue / A. H. Clough

I had duck-billed platypus / Patrick Barrington

In a copy of More's (or Shaw's or Well's or Plato's or anybody's) Utopia / Max Beerbohm

The solution / Bertolt Brecht

Low down sandcastle blues / Les Murray

Hilaire Belloc: A modest politician

Epitaph on a politician

Lord Finchley

The pacifist

The world state / G. K. Chesterton

Lord Lundy / Hilaire Belloc

There lived a king / W. S. Gilbert

The ewart organization / Gavin Ewart

Guns before butter / Bertolt Brecht

High sugar / Les Murray

LITERATURE: Bloomsbury snapshop / Connie Bensley

Reproof deserved, or After the lecture / John Betjeman

The black box / Gavin Ewart

Cacoethes Scribendi / Oliver Wendell Holmes

On his books / Hilaire Belloc

From The second part of Absalom and Architophel / John Dryden

'You cannot hope to bribe or twist' / Humbert Wolfe

'A critic is a creature who has views' / Bharthari

On a lady who P

st at the Tragedy of Cato / Alexander Pope

Academic / Theodore Roethke

To minerva / Thomas Hood

The uncertainty of the poet / Wendy Cope

BESTIARY: The pig / Anon.

The wasp / Ogden Nash

The frog prince / Stevie Smith

The frog / Hilaire Belloc

Ogden Nash: The octopus

The eel

The rabbit / Anon.

To a mouse / Robert Burns

Guillaume Apollinaire: Mouse

Carp

Epigram III.35 ('Instant fish') / Martial

Leigh Hunt: To a fish

A fish answers

The python / Hilaire Belloc

The cobra / Ogden Nash

An appeal to cats in the business of love / Thomas Flatman

The blind sheep / Randall Jarrell

Ogden Nash: The grackle

The hippopotamus

The hippopotamus song / Michael Flanders

Mollusc / Les Murray

Epigram ('I am his highness dog') Alexander Pope

Ogden Nash: The dog

The cow

The louse / Robert burns

The bunyip / Weldon Kees

MORTALITY: Harry Graham: Opportunity

Mr Jones

L'Enfant glace

Nothing to fear / Kingsley Amis

Lucilius: My dad was worried

Lean Gaius

To his skeleton / Richard Wilbur

Arithmetic on the frontier / Rudyard Kipling

Waste / Harry Graham

Yes, I know

All things pass / Stevie Smith

A toccata of Galuppi's / Robert Browning

'Give me a doctor' / W.H. Auden

Anon.: On Mary Ann

On Will Smith

At Potterne, Wiltshire

Epigram I,16 / Martial

Epitaph on Charles II / John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Here lies a philosopher / Charles Dibdin

'The angler rose' / R. L. Stevenson

Epitaph on a unfortunate artist / Robert Graves

From tombstones in the starlight / Dorothy Parker

Anon.: A dentist

At Great Torrington, Devon

At Aberdeen

Epitaph in St. Olave's, Southwark, on Mr Munday

On a tired housewife.