He was down from Scotland at the time.
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So far God, if there be one, has not smitten me, which could be evidence of his benevolence or of his poor aim.
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Thanks! I’m sorry to learn that there seemingly is no such office.
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Or an appreciation of a good Limerick
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I’m oddly reminded of that story that J.B.S. Haldane, asked what he had learned about God from his studies as a naturalist, replied, “He has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”
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The limerick of his that I know is
There once was a Communist, Lenin,
Who did two or three million men in.
That’s a lot to have done in,
But where he did one in,
His follower, Stalin, did ten in.
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There may have been a footnote about that, but I no longer have the book (Kingsley Amis, Memoirs).
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Well, we know that Conquest wrote at least one limerick, so he might have written more. And my copy of the Oxford Book of Light Verse, edited by Amis, contains quite a few limericks, so we know he collected them. On the other hand, poets who collect limericks may also write them, and there’s ample evidence of Amis’s sense of humor.
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Amis and Conquest egged one another on in the composition of limericks of great obscenity and flawless metre.
I can connive at filth but I cannot stand poor scansion.
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They also edited several anthologies of original science fiction stories.
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guide to pronunciation
The integral sec y dy
From zero to one-sixth of pi
Is the log to base e
Of the square-root of three
Times the sixty fourth power of i.
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I knew an old man from Jakarta
By God! a magnificent farter.
He could fart anything
From “God Save the King”
To Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”
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From that line I see that the composer of that limerick spoke a nonrhotic dialect of English. When I read it I had to say “Sonarta.”
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Snarter, innit.
Sorry, sarf lunnon creeps in now and again (whenever I open the door).
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My favourite not only rhymes two forbidden words, but also sexually objectifies both women and men. Well, undergrads, anyway. But it has perfect meter and is full of internal rhymes.
Indecent, improper, offensive classic Limerick: DO NOT READ
On the banks of the Cam sat Lord Buckingham
A-twiddling his thumbs and a-sucking 'em
And watching the stunts
Of the cvnts in the punts
And the tricks of the pricks who were fvcking 'em.
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My best effort in that vein is marred by having too much wishful thinking instead of the historical accuracy of your example:
The Communists, Engels and Marx,
Produced, when they argued, such sparks,
That their writings caught fire
And burned up like a pyre,
And thus put a stop to their larks.
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Oh, I do wish . . .
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I assume this is the other:
pronunciation
A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
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It is.
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Topical Limerick
A Limerick’s rhyme-scheme is easy
And their meter is joyous and breezy
But their wit is inclined
All too often, we find,
To degrade from the ribald to sleazy.
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