Poems and Verse I Remember (or Misremember)

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April is National Poetry Month, I'm told.  That's at time of going to press; it could easily turn into World Spank Your Kitten Month by action of the appropriate legal body or trade group, who knows?  If they can privatize human DNA, nothing is sacred after all.

Poetry is an exalted art-form which once belonged to the people, but ... evidently no longer so.  Nowadays, the poetry is never learned by heart, but merely read aloud, and rarely read aloud more than a dozen times altogether before it passes from public knowledge.  It has degenerated into mere journalism.

The stuff that millions learned from memory has been de-canonized, and is now only verse.  Okay, then, this is about verse I learned as a child and a youth (youth tooth?), a glorification of the joys of committing to memory rhymes and doggerel which may or may not be poetry.

Enid Blyton:
"It was a cough that carried her off,
It was a coffin they carried her off in."

Unknown:
I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear,
But a silver nutmeg, and a golden pear.

Quoted by my friend Glenda:
"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candlestick"

Quoted by Alyssa:
"Roses are red, violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet, and so are you!"

Lewis Carrol, Quoted by Kevin:
"How doth the little crocodile
Improve each shining scale,
And splash the waters of the Nile
On ...?"

[Kevin quoted it accurately, and I misremembered it.  Here is the real thing:

    How doth the little crocodile
    Improve his shining tail,
    And pour the waters of the Nile
    On every golden scale!

    How cheerfully he seems to grin,
    How neatly spreads his claws,
    And welcomes little fishes in
    With gently smiling jaws!
]

Unknown:
There was a young man with a hernia,
who said to his doctor, Goldurnia,
When fixing my middle,
be sure you don't fiddle,
with matters that do not concernia."

Unknown, attributed to Jesus:
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God.

Edward Lear, from The Owl and the Pussycat:
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
and sang to his soft guitar:
O Beautiful Pussy, O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Anonymous:
This is the maiden, all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
Who chased the dog,
That swallowed the cat,
That killed the rat
That lived in the house that Jack built.

Woody Guthrie (lyrics sung by Pete Seeger)
I'm a gonna wrap myself with paper,
I'm a gonna stick myself with glue,
Put a stamp on top of my head,
I'm a gonna mail myself to you!

[Added later:  There are more verses:

I'm gonna tie me up in a red string
I'm gonna tie a blue ribbon too
Climb up inside my mailbox
I'm gonna mail myself to you

When you find me in your mailbox
Cut the string and let me out
Wash the glue from off my fingers
Stick some bubblegum in my mouth

When you find me in your mailbox
Wash the glue from off my head
Fill me up with ice cream sodas
Tuck me into a nice warm bed.
]

Christina Rossetti:
How would you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?

Unknown, possibly Longfellow:
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to Earth I know not where
I sang a song into the air,
...
Long, long after, in an oak,
I found my arrow, still unbroke,
The song, too I did find again,
In the heart of a long-lost friend.

[
Yes, it was Longfellow, "The Arrow & the Song":

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
]

Unknown (Stevenson?):
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary highland lass
(...) and singing as she reaps,
Stop now, or gently pass.

Unknown:
"Will you walk into my parlor"
said the spider to the fly,
It's the prettiest little parlor
That ever you did spy."

John Donne:
...
Therefore, ask not for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Please submit your own memorized rhymes, verses and other doggerel!  No fair looking it up; it's gotta be whatever you remember (or misremember!).  I may supply a corrected version if I deem it valuable for the present purpose, anyway.

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