The Purist by Ogden Nash

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

The Firefly by Ogden Nash

The firefly's flame
Is something for which science has no name
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a
person's posteerier.

Very Like a Whale by Ogden Nash

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wold on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

Every Day is Monday by Ogden Nash

Monday is the day that everything starts all over again,
Monday is the day when just as you are beginning to feel peaceful you have to get up and get dressed and put on your old gray bonnet and drive down to Dover again,
It is the day when life becomes grotesque again,
Because it is the day when you have to face your desk again;
When the telephone rings on Saturday or Sunday you are pleased because it probably means something pleasing and you take the call with agility,
But when it rings on any other day it just usually means some additional responsibility,
And if in doubt,
Why the best thing to do is to answer it in a foreign accent or if you are a foreigner answer it in a native accent and say you are out.
Oh, there is not a week-day moment that can't wring a sigh from you,
Because you are always being confronted with people who want to sell you something, or if they don't want to sell you something, there is something they want to buy from you,
And every shining hour swaggers arrogantly up to you demanding to be improved,
And apparently not only to improve it, but also to shine it, is what you are behooved.
Oh for a remedy, oh for a panacea, oh for a something, oh yes, oh for a coma or swoon,
Yes indeed, oh for a coma that would last from nine A.M. on Monday until Saturday noon.

A Word on Wind by Ogden Nash

Cows go around saying Moo,
But the wind goes around saying Woooo.
Ghosts say Woooo to you, too,
But everybody has heard the wind and few people have heard a ghost,
So it is commonly supposed that the wind says Woooo the most.
Scientists try to tell us that wind is caused by atmospheric conditions at the North Pole or over distant Canadian ranches,
But I guess scientists don't ever get to the country because everybody who has ever been in the country knows that wind is caused by the trees waggling their branches.
On the ocean, where there are no trees, they refer to the wind as gales,
And it is probably caused by whales,
And in the Sahara, where there are no trees or whales either, they call the wind simoom or something,
And it is the result of the profanation of Tutankhamen's tomb or something.
Ill winds blow nobody good and they also blow new hats into mud puddles and voracious clouds of mosquitoes into propinquity with your hide,
And they make your cigarette burn down on just one side.
Some people are very refined,
And when they recite poetry or sing songs they pronounce wind, wined.
Well, dear wined, every time you say Wooooo,
Why I wish you would say it to people who say wined, right after you have said it somewhere where somebody is making fertilizer or glue.

To My Valentine by Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're loved by me.

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty by Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?