May 12th is Limerick Day, perhaps for the arbitrary reason any day is a national day of some kind. May 9th is Lost Sock Memorial Day as well as National Sleepover Day. May 17th is Cherry Cobbler Day, which must not be allowed to carryover into May 18th, because that, honey child, is Cheese Soufflé Day. There are so many of commemorative days for every day of the year it’s no wonder Congress can’t get anything passed between the cobbler and soufflé.
But I was talking about limericks, being an apt subject for the distinguished readers of this blog.
The form of the limerick is believed to have been created as a party or festival song that invited participants to spin their own verse of the marvelous attractions or mishaps of Limerick, Ireland. Each verse would be capped by a chorus inviting everyone up to Limerick. I get this from The Complete Limerick Book by Langford Reed, published in 1925.
Reed notes the artist and author Edward Lear is the name many people associate with limericks and could easily believe to be the one who created them whole clothe. Of all that he accomplished in his life, his Book of Nonsense is the main thing for which he is famous. Reed offers these lines on the subject of fame:
A goddess, capricious, is Fame;
You may strive to make noted your name
But she either neglects you
Or coolly selects you
For laurels distinct from your aim.
In honor of the day, let me repeat one of the most excellent of tongue-twisters, this one from Ogden Nash:
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
Edward Lear wrote many limericks, but he cheated. Instead of finding a fresh rhyme for the final word, he would just repeat the last word from the first line. This sucks all the joy out of limericks. One of his went something like, “There was a young girl on the border / Whose home was a constant disorder. / She danced with a cat, / And brewed tea in her hat / Which vexed all the folks on the border.” Pathetic.
Yes, I saw one about a woman from Norway who sat in her doorway. The last line was almost identical to the first, so it felt tidy but too short.