So. Farewell
Then

Dizzy Gillespie
Famous jazz
Trumpeter.

You were known
For your
Bulging cheeks.

Rudolf Nureyev

So were
You.

— E.J. Thribb

Tho’ my verse is exact,
Tho’ it flawlessly flows,
As a matter of fact
I would rather write prose.

While my harp is in tune,
And I sing like the birds,
I would really as soon
Write in straightaway words.

Tho’ my songs are as sweet
As Apollo e’er piped,
And my lines are as neat
As have ever been typed,

I would rather write prose —
I prefer it to rime;
It’s less hard to compose,
And it takes me less time.

“Well, if that be the case,”
You are moved to inquire,
“Why appropriate space
For extolling your lyre?”

I can only reply
That this form I elect
‘Cause it pleases the eye,
And I like the effect.

— Bert Leston Taylor

“Thou jestedst when thou swor’st that thou betrothedst
The wench thou boastedst that thou lustedst for!
Thou thwartedst those thou saidst thou never loathedst,
But laudedst those that thou distrustedst more!
Ah, if thou manifestedst all thou insistedst,
Nor coaxedst those that thou convincedst not,
Nor vex’dst the ear thou wish’dst that thou enlistedst …”

“Thou’dst spit upon me less, thou sibilant sot!”

— R.A. Piddington

A double limerick by Walter de la Mare:

There was a young lady of Rheims,
There was an old poet of Gizeh;
He rhymed on the deepest and sweetest of themes,
She scorned all his efforts to please her:
And he sighed, “Ah, I see,
She and sense won’t agree.”
So he scribbled her moonshine, mere moonshine, and she,
With jubilant screams, packed her trunk up in Rheims,
Cried aloud, “I am coming, O Bard of my dreams!”
And was clasped to his bosom in Gizeh.

In 1888, on reading that the villanelle requires “an elaborate amount of care in production, which those who read only would hardly suspect existed,” British philologist W.W. Skeat tossed off this one:

It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it,
As easy as reciting A B C,
You need not be an atom of a poet.

If you’ve a grain of wit, and want to show it,
Writing a villanelle — take this from me —
It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it.

You start a pair of rimes, and then you “go it”
With rapid-running pen and fancy free;
You need not be an atom of a poet.

Take any thought, write round it and below it,
Above or near it, as it liketh thee;
It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it.

Pursue your task, till, like a shrub, you grow it,
Up to the standard size it ought to be;
You need not be an atom of a poet.

Clear it of weeds, and water it, and hoe it,
Then watch it blossom with triumphant glee.
It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it;
You need not be an atom of a poet.

Prescott, press my Ascot waistcoat —
Let’s not risk it
Just to whisk it:
Yes, my Ascot waistcoat, Prescott.
Worn subfusc, it’s
Cool and dusk: it
Might be grass-cut
But it’s Ascot,
And it fits me like a gasket —
Ascot is the waistcoat, Prescott!
Please get
Off the spot of grease. Get
Going, Prescott —
Where’s that waistcoat?
It’s no task at
All, an Ascot:
Easy as to clean a musket
Or to dust an ivory tusk. It
Doesn’t take a lot of fuss. Get
To it, Prescott,
Since I ask it:
We can’t risk it —
Let’s not whisk it.
That’s the waistcoat;
Thank you, Prescott.

— David McCord

First Violin: I, in love with the beauty of this world, endow it with my own beauty. The world has no abyss. Streaming out, my heart spends itself. I am only song: I sound.

Second Violin: For me, beside your more ethereal being, it is forbidden to have an I. Not the world — but more firmly and substantially: the earth has taught me. There it is growing dark. Let me accompany you, sister!

Viola: My grey hair makes it my duty to name the abyss for you. As you two childlike kindred spirits skim along, even the quarrel about nothing becomes attractive. But I suffer.

Cello: I know in my heart of hearts, that all is fate, the finely done and the unrelieved. I am true to the whole: enjoy life and repent! I do not warn. I weep with you. I console.

— Josef Weinheber (translated by Patrick Bridgewater)

If the man who turnips cries
Cry not when hs father dies,
‘Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.

— Samuel Johnson