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Choose a famous poem and write it in limerick form, putting the title of the original poem at the top. Please fit your chosen poem into one limerick (five lines) only. See “How to Write a Limerick.” Post your limerick in the comments section below. See examples:
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Nothing Gold Can Stay (Frost)
The first green of nature is gold.
The hardest of colors to hold.
Her new leaf is a flower,
Bright and bold for an hour
Till the winter, the Frost and the cold.
—Mike Bryant
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Still I Rise (Angelou)
Oil pumps and then wells in my eyes.
Diamonds meet at the top of my thighs.
I have no room for gloom;
To the moon with all doom.
Like the hot air in lies, I will rise!
—Susan Jarvis Bryant
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Ozymandias (Shelley)
A statue of some royal jerk
Lies smashed in the sand, with a smirk.
Whoever he was,
He’s forgotten, becuz
There ain’t nothin’ left of his work.
I don’t think you left out a single thought from the original…
Jest at its best.
You got all the philosophy of the original poem, with some humour thrown in!
The irony is just as thick as the original. Great stuff.
The Highwayman
To the pride of a landlord of yore
rode a seeker of riches galore.
Though he treasured her heart,
they would be torn apart
by the gold to be stolen worth more.
“Toads re-visited” by Philip Larkin
To the family of poor Mr. Toad,
An apology surely is owed.
So I’ll start in the morn,
To collect all the spawn,
And then render my bath their abode.
A bathtub’s no place for large shoals
Of mournful and morphing tadpoles
An orphan amphibian
Prefers the Caribbean
That’s why tubs are blessed with plugholes. 🙂
The funeral of Toad of Toad Hall,
Was a slimy affair I recall.
All the laughter and croaks,
From his family and folks,
Who turned up for the day, warts and all.
Susan, amphibian rhyming with Caribbean at first glance is just so dreadful. Later, it becomes genius. Love it.
Jeff, that’s so funny. I went with the American pronunciation of ‘Caribbean’… without even giving it a second thought. I’ve been away from the UK for too long! lol
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
It was brillig (whatever that is)
When a lad with a sword said “Gee whizz!
If I bring back the head
Of a Jabberwock dead
There’ll be callays, calloohs, and free fizz!”
David, I love it! Jabberwocky is a favorite of mine, and one of the first I considered transforming, but I got stuck and moved on. I’m so happy to read your version.
Thank you Anna. The inventive language in Jabberwocky is what appeals to me most. Charles Dodgson’s ‘chortle’ has made it into common usage. ‘Brillig’ never quite caught on.
David, love this one, thank you for a good laugh.
Thanks Jeff, your toad limericks are also very funny.
A toad funeral as a ‘slimy affair’ is my favourite mental picture.
David, this is a brillig limerick! All galumph and no whiffle – a chortle-worthy wonder that’s brightened my mimsy day and has the recesses of my brain outgrabing for more of this joy in this fruminous world of bandersnatches.
“The Fly” by William Blake
Little fly its thoughtless play did spoil
my sport and put my face in night soil,
when I drank on the street
and sang a song upbeat.
If you please, brush my hair with sweet oil?
Inspired by ‘To A Butterfly’ by William Wordsworth
Oh butterfly, lovely to see
I’m so glad that you’re not a bee
that comes ’round with a buzz
as a bee always does…
a sting would be too much for me!
Also, not particularly funny but inspired
by another Wordsworth poem…”A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal.”
Midst the rocks and the stones and trees
there is Light in the peace of the breeze
and a mood of no fear
on this ancient earth here
where the willows bend down on their knees.
I love this!!
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 130
“My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”
My mistress is unlike the sun;
Her skin is the color of dun.
Though dark be her features,
Of all of God’s creatures
Her beauty is second to none.
“Molly Malone”
Irish Traditional
With a tip of the hat to the late great Allan Sherman
Sweet Molly Malone wheeled her barrow
Through streets not too broad but too narrow.
Her hips were so wide
They scraped on each side
And squeezed her as thin as an arrow.
James – This one is brilliant and had me whistling the tune as I read it (I should mention I have an exceedingly mellifluous whistle).
Great tribute to the “Tart with a heart” ….how about one for “The Floozie in the Jacuzzi?”
Inferno
Dante Alighieri
From Canto III
A poet named Dante attended
A Hell-tour James Sale recommended.
Abandoning hope
He slid down the slope
And wrote it all down when it ended.
There are many fine limericks here, James, but indubitably yours – this one – is the masterpiece! If you go to Florence now, you will certainly obtain the laurel that Dante failed to win – only covid-19 stands in your way!!!
AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE (Blake)
The World’s a mere Grain of the Sand,
more vast than the seashore’s broad strand.
And Heaven’s a flower
each Infinite hour,
while Galaxies fit in my hand.
— Royal Rhodes
The Cat in the Hat (Abridged and Uncensored)
A cat in a hat made a mess,
putting two kids at home under stress.
Then the cat pulled some strings
and enlisting two Things
cleaned the house in a minute or less.
IF.. (Rudyard Kipling)
If you straddle both sides of the fence,
And pose as a man of good sense,
You’ll likely grow rich,
You damned son-of-a-bitch,
Even though you are stupid and dense.
My favourite poem to limerick(s) is Wendy Cope’s “The Wasteland”:
The Waste Land: Five Limericks
I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me–
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.
II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions–
Bad as Albert and Lil–what a pair!
III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep–
A typist is laid,
A record is played–
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.
IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business–the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he’d met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.
V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you’ll make sense of the notes.
The Lady Of Shalott
She was a lady of leisure
and he a man of truth
when she saw him
she swooned
and expired for good measure
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The crew deemed their shipmate a turd
o’er an albatross, shot, so they heard
with the old sailor’s bow,
causing ill-fortune, so
they collectively gave him the bird.
Bullseye Paul, love this one.
Hickory, Dickory, Dock (Nursery Rhyme)
Inspired by the previous posting of Joe Tessitore and an old joke.
Hickory, Dickory, Dock.
Two mice ran up the clock.
The clock struck one
And then he was done.
The other one died from the shock.
Funny oh could’ve been growing old with the rhyme.
Thank you, Kathy!
Jabberwocky
A youth of uncertain location
Once vanquished a beast of predation.
His torturous time
Was captured in rhyme.
Narration/ translation/ truncation
Dick and Jane: Book 1
We already knew ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’,
and probably ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’.
But then we learned ‘dog’,
which was followed by ‘frog’,
and some pronouns like ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘we’.
The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost
I looked at two roads in a wood
deciding which one was more good
Since on one had trod more
of the travelers before
On the lesser I felt that I should
“One Perfect Rose” Dorothy Parker
Roses Wilt; Limos Don’t
Classy gent! He sent one perfect rose.
At the moment it pleases my nose.
A big luxury car
would be better by far.
Is a Benz en route? I don’t suppose!
“Ebb” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I know how my heart now appears,
Since your love went away with the years:
It’s a pool in a ledge
Drying in from the edge,
That can never be quickened with tears.
From Emily Dickinson’s
I taste a liquor never brewed
I taste a liquor never brewed
Gulp it by glassful. In a mood,
Sip like iced tea
By a crystal blue sea
An inveterate tippler – that’s me !.
A limerick of sorts;
If you take the road not taken,
and walk in beauty like the night,
knocking on silent doors,
you may find in time
that the road left behind, was the right!
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Gray)
There was a young poet called Gray
who wrote in a churchyard all day
till the ploughman was spent,
the cows homeward went,
and the bell tolled the end of the day.
really enjoyed your last line.
The Congo.
Large black men ensconced in a room
Held handles removed from a broom.
On barrels they beat
Keeping time with their feet.
Making sounds:boomlay boom, boomlay boom.