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The limerick

The limerick is a story in five lines of verse. There are usually nine beats in lines one, two and five ; six beats in lines three and four. The ninth beat in lines one, two, and five are accentuated, and this is called « anapaestic rhythm (or foot) » : two short syllables and a long. The first line sets the scene and gives us the main character. The second line rhymes with the first. The first and forth lines are shorter and rhyme with each other. The fifth line rhymes with the first two and produces the climax. The limerick is usually described as « nonsense verse ».

Example 1 (author unknown)

There was a young lady of Riga,

Who smiled as she rode a tiger.

            They returned from the ride

            With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Example 2 (by Edward Lear)

There was a young lady of Clare,

Who was sadly pursued by a bear ;

            When she found she was tired,

            She abruptly expired,

That unfortunate lady of Clare.

Example 3 (by Edward Lear)

There was an old man of Nepal,

From his horse had a terrible fall ;

            But, though split quite in two,

            With some very strong glue

They mended that man of Nepal.

Example 4 (by Edward Lear)

There was a young fellow named Fisher

Who was fishing for fish in a fissure ;

            Then a cod with a grin

            Pulled the fisherman in...

Now they’re fishing the fissure for Fisher.

The haiku

William Carlos Williams (American poet), The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), Japanese, the most famous poet of the Edo period, recognized as a master of the haiku

1. Japanese : furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto

English translation : an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water [1686]

Another English translation : An old pond / a frog jumps in /Splash !

2. Japanese : abi ni yande / yume wa kareno wo / kake meguru

English translation : falling sick on a journey / my dream goes wandering / over a field of dried grass [1694]

4. Temple bells die out.

The fragrant blossoms remain.

A perfect evening!

5. Mountain-rose petals

falling, falling,

falling now . . .

Waterfall music.

6. You make the fire
and I’ll show you something wonderful:
a big ball of snow!

7. This autumn:

why do I feel so old ?

into the clouds, a bird.

8. Wearing a robe of frost,

the wind spread as its sleeping mat :

an abandoned baby.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18 (from the collection of 154 sonnets published in 1609)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Paraphrase

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Shall I compare you to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / You are more lovely and more constant:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, /Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: / And summer is far too short:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, / At times the sun is too hot,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; / Or often goes behind the clouds;

And every fair from fair sometime declines, / And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; / By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, / But your youth shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; / Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, / Nor will death claim you for his own,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest. / Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long as there are people on this earth,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee. / So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan or a vision in a dream (completed in 1797, published in 1816)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Fragments from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (1855)

(from section 1)

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. (...)

Section 16
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and
hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest
joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin
leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen
off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the
Texan ranch,
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving
their big proportions,)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands
and welcome to drink and meat,
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California (1955)

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! 

What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons ?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)           

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage ?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

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©2008 Monica Manolescu-Oancea. Dernière mise à jour : 29 septembre 2012.