Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)
American poet.
How easy for those who do not bulge
To not overindulge!
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.
The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.
The further through life I drift
The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift.
Abracadabra, thus we learn,
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you're given,
The less you lead, the more you're driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul should take
If the tax collector hasn't got it before I wake.
People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.
O Adolescence, O Adolescence
I wince before thine incandescence . . .
When anxious elders swarm about
Crying "Where are you going?", thou answerest "Out," . . .
Strewn! All is lost and nothing found
Lord, how thou leavest things around! . . .
God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
I can't say that I feel particularly one way or the other towards bell-boy,
But I do admit that I haven't much use for the it's-just-as-well boys,
The cheery souls who drop around after every catastrophe and think they are taking the curse off
By telling you about somebody who is even worse off.
No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud,
Their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.
And what really turns my corpuscles to ice,
I carry around clippings and read them to people twice.
And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner,
And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.
Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?
I hope of lightning our supply
Will never be exhausted;
You know its lanterns in the sky
For angels who are losted.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.
Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens
Bears have Cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.
It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant...
There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.