Said a logical linguist named Rolles,
“As we always call Polish folk Poles,
For better precision
(I am a logician)
We ought to call Dutch people Holes.”
Poems
“To a Lost Sweetheart”
When Whistler’s Mother’s Picture’s frame
Split, that sad morn, in two,
Your tense words scorched me like a flame —
You shrieked, “Ah, glue! Get glue!”
O Glue! O God! there was not glue
Enough in all the feet
Of all the kine the wide world through
To hold you to me, Sweet!
Couplet
It is remarkable that they
Talk most who have the least to say.
— Matthew Prior
Update
Catullus wrote this poem in the first century B.C.:
Mourn, o Venuses and Cupids
and however many there are of more charming people:
my girl’s sparrow is dead—
the sparrow, delight of my girl,
whom that girl loved more than her own eyes.
For he was honey-sweet and had known
the lady as well as a girl [knows] her mother herself,
nor did he move himself from that girl’s lap,
but hopping around now here now there
he chirped constantly to his mistress alone,
he who now goes through the shadowy journey
thither, whence they deny that anyone returns.
But may it go badly for you, evil shadows
of hell, who devour all beautiful things.
You have taken from me so beautiful a sparrow.
Oh evil deed! Oh wretched little sparrow!
Now through your deeds the eyes of my girl,
swollen with weeping, are red.
In 1912 G.S. Davies translated it into, of all things, a Scottish brogue:
Weep, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o’ decent feelin’:
My lassie’s lost her wee, wee bird,
And that’s a loss, ye’ll ken, past healin’.
The lassie lo’ed him like her een:
The darling wee thing lo’ed the ither,
And knew and nestled to her breast,
As only bairnie to her mither.
Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt—
So dear, he cared na lang to leave it;
He’d nae but gang his ain sma’ jaunt,
And flutter piping back bereavit.
The wee thing’s gane the shadowy road
That’s never traveled back by ony:
Out on ye, Shades! Ye’re greedy aye
To grab at aught that’s brave and bonny.
Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird,
Ye little ken what wark ye’re leavin’:
Ye’ve bar’d my lassie’s een grow red,
Those bonnie een grow red wi’ grieving.
Elegy
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.
— Mark Twain’s epitaph for his daughter Susy, adapted from Robert Richardson’s poem “Annette”
Down and Up
The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat’ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite ’em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
— Jonathan Swift
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
— Augustus De Morgan
Limerick
A certified poet from Slough,
Whose methods of rhyming were rough,
Retorted, “I see
That the letters agree
And if that’s not sufficient I’m through.”
— Clifford Witting
Figures of Speech
In the Saturday Review in 1946, architect Gerald Lynton Kaufman proposed nine “poetry forms in mathematics”:
The Lovers’ Knot
This unusual poetic form made its first appearance in William Browne’s 1625 verse collection Britannia’s Pastorals.
The text traces a single continuous intertwined line, involved with itself and never ending.
“The Impossible Fact”
Palmstroem, old, an aimless rover,
Walking in the wrong direction
At a busy intersection
Is run over.
“How,” he says, his life restoring
And with pluck his death ignoring,
“Can an accident like this
Ever happen? What’s amiss?
“Did the state administration
Fail in motor transportation?
Did police ignore the need
For reducing driving speed?
“Isn’t there a prohibition
Barring motorized transmission
Of the living to the dead?
Was the driver right who sped … ?”
Tightly swathed in dampened tissues
He explores the legal issues,
And it soon is clear as air:
Cars were not permitted there!
And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
For, he reasons pointedly,
That which must not, can not be.
— Christian Morgenstern (translated by Max Knight)