Short Poems

Martin Tupper
Sang for his supper;
Though the supper wasn't nice,
It was cheap at the price.

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Would never accept any fee
For singing " The Wearing of the Green",
Accompanying himself on the tambourine.

As a young man, Tennyson
Wrote a virelai about venison,
Which falls into the same group
With his sirvente about soup.

Bishop Stubbs
Was expelled from all his clubs
For disparaging the Oxford crew
In The Quarterly Review .

FOR A FIGURE REPRESENTING THE GOD OF LOVE .

Whoe'er thou art, thy lord and master see;
Thou wast my slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.

The digestion of Milton
Was unequal to Stilton.
He was only feeling so-so
When he wrote Il Penseroso .

Guglielmo Marconi
Was brought up on marcaroni,
But when he gets it now
There's no end of a row.

Although Machiavelli
Was extremely fond of jelly,
He stuck religiously to mince
While he was writing The Prince .

I doubt if King John
Was a sine qua non .
I could rather imagine it
Of any other Plantagenet.

Sir James Jeans
Always says what he means;
He is really perfectly serious
About the Universe being Mysterious.