As this is December, and as you might want to learn some poems to amuse kids over Christmas, I have decided to start here with some very silly verses from Hilaire Belloc’s delightful book
MORE BEASTS FOR WORSE CHILDREN.
I’ll begin with
THE SCORPION
The Scorpion is as black as soot,
He dearly loves to bite;
He is a most unpleasant brute
To find in bed at night.
That one is very easy to learn – here’s another.
THE VULTURE
The vulture eats between his meals
And that’s the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
As well as you and I.
His eye is dull, his head is bald,
His neck is growing thinner.
Oh! what a lesson for us all
To eat only at dinner!
And now that you are in your stride and have mastered two verses, here’ yet another another,(yes I said it twice)… these make ideal Xmas dinner fun
THE BISON
The Bison is vain, and (I write it with pain),
The doormat you see on his head
Is not, as some learned professors maintain,
The opulent growth of a genius brain;
But is sewn on with a needle and thread.
And last but not least … for Men of Science everywhere, especially the ones who were cross with me about my homeopathy article in the Guardian…
THE MICROBE
The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots
On each of which a pattern stands
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen –
But scientists who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so….
Oh! Let us never, never doubt
What NOBODY is sure about!
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