Thankful Thursday

One of the advantages of getting older is that one has more memories: some good, some bad but at least there are a lot of them.  Some of mine have been brought to mind by a book a friend lent me entitled A Present of Laughter.

I was surprised by how many of the rhymes and so on I knew.

My brother, CJ, and I often come up with lines from well-known works like Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, The Walrus and the Carpenter, or "You are old, Father William" but I had never heard of his The Mad Gardener's Song and I have to admit that although his The Hunting of the Snark is a title well known to me, when I read it I couldn't recall it at all.

How many of you have heard A Song About Myself

There was a naughty Boy,

A Naughty boy was he,

He would not stop at home,

He could not quiet be -

     He took

     In his Knapsack

     A Book

     Full of vowles

     And a shirt

     With some towels-

     ...........

and so it goes on.   But can you recall who might have written it?  I know it well and I know it's author well - he was one of my favourite poets with great epics like Hyperion to his credit.  He was the serious John Keats (1795-1821).  But could I remember that he was the author?  No.

I'm not a great lover of Edward Lear (1812-1888) and his nonsense rhymes but I do love his The Owl and The Pussycat going to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat, eating mince and slices of quince with a runcible spoon and dancing by the light of the moon.  The wonderful illustration is by L Leslie Brooke (1862-1940).

W S Gilbert (1836-1911) is well known for his half of the pairing of Gilbert and Sullivan but how many have heard of his Gentle Alice Brown and it's sage tale of love and corruption most amusingly put.  I had not.

I'm sure that I heard the following limerick (anonymous) before I'd gone to school:

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a Tiger

     They came back from the ride

     With the lady inside

And the smile on the face of the Tiger.

Can you imagine this anonymous ditty being allowed anywhere near a politically correct book these days:

Little Willie hung his sister,

She was dead before we missed her.

"Willie's always up to tricks!

 Ain't he cute? He's only six!"

Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) lived long and wrote much - very much - including his cautionary tales such as Jim (Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a lion) or Rebecca (Who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably).

I shall finish with Ogden Nash's (1902 - 1971) The Wombat for no other reason than it has an  antipodean connection and, if you have ever seen a wombat, is quite ludicrous:

The wombat lives across the seas
Among the fair Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
or then again on missionaries;
His distant habit precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.

So why is this a Thankful Thursday post?  I'm very thankful I have known (most of) these wonderful pieces of nonsense and had so many years of enjoyment out of them and their authors.