The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea, In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note.(1871)
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, ‘It is just as I feared’-
Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren,
Have all build their nests in my beard! (1846)
LIMERICKS | EDWARD LEAR LIMERICKS | POETRY & What is a Limerick
NONSENSE LIMERICKS
By EDWARD LEAR
The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea,
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.(1871)
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, ‘It is just as I feared’-
Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren,
Have all build their nests in my beard! (1846)
There was a young lady of Norway
Who casually sat on a doorway
When the door squeezed her flat,
She exclaimed “What of that?”
This courageous Young Lady of Norway.
There was an old man of Cape Horn
Who wished he had never been born
So he sat on a chair
Till he died of despair
That dolorous Man of Cape Horn
There was an old lady whose folly
Induced her to sit on a holly
Wherein by a thorn
Her dress being torn
She quickly became melancholy
There was an old person of Rhodes
Who strongly objected to toads
He paid several cousins
To catch them by the dozens
That futile old person of Rhodes
There was an old man of Nepal
From his horse had a terrible fall
But though split quite in two
By some very strong glue
They mended that old man of Nepal
There was an old person of Mold
Who shrank from sensations of cold
So he purchased some muffs
Some furs and some fluffs
And wrapped himself from the cold
There was a young lady of Poole
Whose soup was excessively cool
So she put it to boil
By the aid of some oil
That ingenious lady of Poole
There was an old person of Prague
But was suddenly seized with the plague
But they gave him some butter
Which caused him to mutter
And cured that old person of Prague
There was an old man of Peru
Who watched his wife making a stew
But once by mistake
In a stove she did bake him
This unfortunate man of Peru
There was a young lady of Lucca
Whose lovers completely forsook her
She ran up a tree
And said, “Fiddle-de-dee!”
Which embarassed the people of Lucca
There was an old man of Bohemia
Whose daughter was christened Euphemia
Till one day, to his grief
She married a Thief
Which greived that old man of Bohemia
There was an old man of Corfu
Who never knew what he should do
So he rushed up and down
Till the sun made him brown
That bewildered old man of Corfu
There was an Old Man of Melrose,
Who walked on the tips of his toes;
But they said, “It ain’t pleasant,
To see you at present,
You stupid Old Man of Melrose.”
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
II
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong
In a Sieve to sail so fast!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
III
The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
IV
And all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade of the mountains brown.
‘O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the mountains brown!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
V
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
VI
And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!
For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore!’
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And every one said, ‘If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,—
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
