Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)
American poet.
The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
How easy for those who do not bulge
To not overindulge!
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Fear not the thunder, little one.
It's weather, simply weather;
It's friendly giants full of fun
Clapping their hands together.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.
Being a father
Is quite a bother,
But I like it, rather.
Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year.
When smut's to be smitten
Smoot will smite
For G-d, for country,
And Fahrenheit.
Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.:
That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
These are enlightened days in which you can get hot water and cold water out of the same spigot,
And everybody has something about which they are proud to be broad-minded but they also have other things about which you would be wasting your breath if you tried to convince them that they were a bigot.
A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.
The weather is so very mild
That some would call it warm.
Good gracious, aren't we lucky, child?
Here comes a thunderstorm.
Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave
When they think that their children are naive.
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
A fig for embryo Lohengrins!
I'll open all his safety pins,
I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,
And give him readings from Aristotle.
Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring,
And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring.
Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water
To marry somebody else's daughter.
It is my duty, gentlemen, to inform you that women are dictators
all, and I recommend to you this moral:
In real life it takes only one to make a quarrel.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.