Here's a Lewis Carroll poem that has delighted me since I was six years old.

The Mad Gardener's Song

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
The bitterness of Life!'

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
"I'll send for the Police!'

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
'Is that it cannot speak!'

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be much for us!'

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
'I should be very ill!'

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!'

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
'The nights are very damp!'

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
'And all its mystery,' he said,
'Is clear as day to me!'

He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'

-- Lewis Carroll

King David and King Solomon
led merry, merry lives,
with many, many lady friends
and many, many wives,

but when old age crept over them
with many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
and King David wrote the Psalms

--James Naylor (?)

One thing that stands out for me in the poems posted here so far is how much the rhyming helps with the humor. Which got me thinking, how much really funny verse has not had rhymes? I'm not asking this rhetorically, I just can't think of much offhand. Billy Collins can be funny, and there are others recently. But rhyme is so effective for making the joke snap, as Blake said,

Her whole Life is an Epigram
Smack smooth & neatly pend
Platted quite neat to catch applause
With a sliding noose at the end


Doesn't a good rhyme in a funny poem sometimes seem like the funniest part?

I absolutely agree. There was an interesting radio discussion (Australian) between the poets Peter Porter and Clive James in which they illustrated this point with numerous examples from the earliest poetry to the present day.

Andrew you will be interested in my argument that the old cliché that Italian has more rhymes than does English is a nonsense. Italian endings are grammar-driven whereas English is full of surprises and effective rhymes or near rhymes are infinite. I think that English is a natural language for sharp rhymed humour. That's one of the sad losses to poetry brought about by the unfashionableness of rhyme.
Janet

For Her Villain
Grace Bauer

The time that she wastes missing him is hell,
though no one banks a fire that has grown cold.
And so she thinks she'll write this villanelle.

Though forms are things she doesn't handle well
she thinks that forcing pain into a mold
of verse might help free her from the hell

of missing him. If only she could tell
the truth from all the lies that have been told
and make sense of it in this villanelle

her heart might open like a prison cell
and she might be released from the long hold
he's had on her. Not holding him is hell.

She tries to tell herself it's just as well.
That even if love could be bought and sold
it would cost her more than this cheap villanelle.

In this vignette, she plays the helpless Nell
tied to the tracks or stranded in the cold.
And like a dark-eyed demon straight from hell
he plays the villain. Here's his villanelle.

(I've posted this John Betjeman poem before but it should be here I think.)


Slough pronounced to rhyme with "now"

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

In A Bath Teashop
John Betjeman


“Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another—
Let us hold hands and look.”
She such a very ordinary little woman;
He such a thumping crook;
But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels
In the teashop’s ingle-nook.

Janet,
I'm with you entirely about the rhymes in English, and how rich the possibilities (and realizations!) are. But I disagree about the Italian in comparison. Would you explain what you mean by endings being "grammar driven"? I don't think I am following that point. I think of the long tradition in Italy, going back to the thirteenth century, of jokey-popular poetry, often using rough rhymes--the ones Dante called "rime aspre e ciocche"--harsh and sounding like the screech of a chicken. Or the scabrous poems the Italian poets used to exchange, where rhyme sounds played up the contrasts, the harsher the consonants the better.
Andrew

Andrew,
Of course as soon as I search for examples I realise I have made a goat of myself. But I'm sick of hearing English speakers solemnly telling me that English is poorer in rhymes than Italian.

I was thinking mainly of Italian verbs but you are right. Italian has a huge variety as well. To an English ear the invariable vowel ending seems less able to exploit percussiveness. I have just looked at two Pascoli poems and they both rely on "o" "e" rhymes all the way through. Dishonestly leaving out the preceding consonant which is where the syllable really starts and where much of the character lies i.e.: ano, are, ano, are, ino, are, ino, ava, ino, ava, ando, ava, ando, ore, ando. Of course they are more complex rhymes elsewhere. Double consonants especially add sparkle. The whole word makes the rhyme in Italian and I have left out the important consonant berore the butchered syllables I showed. The real effect in Pascoli is: grano/ Seminare/ piano/mare/vicino/ compare/chino/cantava/ mattino/ aggiogava/mugliando/bava/Nando/maggiore/quando/Dore.
Dante rhymes chosen at random: ati, one, ati, ghia, ati. I realise that Italian rhyme must include the consonant before the rhyme to show its character.
English can slam down hard on a consonant ending but we have to go to "ing" or "en" or "le" endings to soften an ending unless a word ends on "f" or "z" or "m" or "n" or "l" etc. Both languages have their strengths. One just has to read a Shakespeare sonnet and then a Petrarca to experience it in exaggerated form.

In English I delight in the crisp light consonant ending of words. In America and Australia I lament the blunting of T into D.

Something for you to kick against.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 09, 2007).]

Thank you, Janet. I want to ponder this a bit - interesting observations.
Andrew