Limerick Day

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 built their nests in my beard!"
—Edward Lear

May 12th is Limerick Day.  Limericks are associated with Edward Lear, whose published limericks appeared in A Book of Nonsense in 1846.  No one really knows when or where limericks started, but the earliest ones relate mostly to drinking and taverns.  People probably loosened up over a few drinks and then chanted bawdy songs and poems. Hundreds of years later, literary types started to take limericks seriously enough to write them down. Ogden Nash was a master of limericks.

 There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, "When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez."
—Ogden Nash

There was a young lady named Bright
who traveled much faster than light.
She set out one day
in a relative way,
and came back the previous night.
—Anonymous

Our novels get longa and longa
Their language gets stronga and stronga
There’s much to be said
For a life that is led
In illiterate places like Bonga
—H. G. Wells

Limericks are often used for political purposes:

There's a boastful campaigner named Trump
who is doing quite well on the stump.
All his insults and gaffs
only get him more laughs.
Will he wind up a champ or a chump?
—Richard Stoll Armstrong 
  
Of course the best limericks can't be posted on this PG-rated blog. They were written by the greatest and most prolific of all poets, Anonymous.

But here's a naughty limerick from the coolest dude who ever lived:

I finally found the perfect girl.
I could not ask for more.
She's deaf and dumb and oversexed.
And owns a liquor store.
—attributed to Dean Martin