Happy Birthday, Edward

On May 12 in London in 1812, Edward Lear was born.

Four years I gave you the Jumblies. Three years ago, the tale of The Dong With A Luminous Nose. The year before, I unaccountably missed him out, but last year a few of his many, many limericks. This year, just a weird little thing:

Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hills,
Colder the cucumbers that grow beneath,
And colder still the brazen chops that wreathe
The tedious gloom of philosophic pills!
For when the tardy film of nectar fills
The simple bowls of demons and of men,
There lurks the feeble mouse, the homely hen,
And there the porcupine with all her quills.
Yet much remains - to weave a solemn strain
That lingering sadly - slowly dies away,
Daily departing with departing day
A pea-green gamut on a distant plain
When wily walrusses in congresses meet -
Such such is life -

More Lear is Here