A Literate Evening

'Ware Tomato Juice

An accident happened to my brother Jim

When somebody threw a tomato at him ---

Tomatoes are juicy and don't hurt the skin,

But this one was specially packed in a tin.

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Mary had a little lamb
Her father killed it dead
And now it goes to school with her
Between two lumps of bread.

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The rain it raineth on the just
and on the unjust fella.
But mostly on the just because
The unjust steals, the justs umbrella.

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Responsibility 

‘Tis easy enough to be twenty-one:

‘Tis easy enough to marry;
But when you try both games at once
‘Tis a bloody big load to carry.

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 Here lies the body of Emily White,
She signalled left and then turned right.

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 Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte
Born a virgin, died a harlot.
She was aye a virgin at seventeen
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

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Erected to the memory of
John Macfarlane
Drowned in the waters of Leith
By a few affectionate friends.

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"Ozymandias"
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Byshe Shelley

 

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 The elephant is a bonnie bird.
    It flits from bough to bough.
    It makes its nest in a rhubarb tree
    And whistles like a cow.   

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Elegy in a Country Churchyard

    THE men that worked for England
    They have their graves at home:
    And birds and bees of England
    About the cross can roam.

    But they that fought for England,
    Following a falling star,
    Alas, alas for England
    They have their graves afar.

    And they that rule in England,
    In stately conclave met,
    Alas, alas for England
    They have no graves as yet.

 G. K. Chesterton