A Limerick by Robert Conquest
First you get puking and mewling
Then very p-ed off with your schooling
Then f-s and then fights
Then judging chaps' rights
Then sitting in slippers-then drooling.
First you get puking and mewling
Then very p-ed off with your schooling
Then f-s and then fights
Then judging chaps' rights
Then sitting in slippers-then drooling.
There's a light on in the attic.
Thought the house is dark and shuttered,
I can see a flickerin' flutter,
And I know what it's about.
There's a light on in the attic.
I can see it from the outside.
And I know you're on the inside... lookin' out.
Thy sins and hairs may no man equal call ;
For, as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.
No debt bothers me now
No balance left for
Tomorrow's shopping either
The thief will sneer at me
More so will do the rich
I wish both see me the same way
Till I dissolve into the elements.
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.
'You acted unwisely,' I cried, 'as you see
By the outcome.' He calmly eyed me:
'When choosing the course of my action,' said he,
'I had not the outcome to guide me.'
Love is a plant with double root,
And of strange, elastic power:
Men's minds are divided in naming the fruit,
But a kiss is only the flower.
Gays gon out early, how comes it to pass?
Not that he has buisness, but thinks that he has
A huge frog and I,
staring at each other,
neither of us moves.
Translated by Robert Hass
Among the vivid green I see
A yellow leaf,
And yonder in the basswood tree
An empty nest swings lonesomely-
The wheat's in sheaf.