Granny’s come to our house,
And ho! my lawzy-daisy!
All the childern round the place
Is ist a-runnin’ crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
And fetched a pear fer all the pack
That runs to kiss their Granny!
Lucy Ellen’s in her lap,
And Wade and Silas Walker
Both’s a-ridin’ on her foot,
And ’Pollos on the rocker;
And Marthy’s twins, from Aunt Marinn’s,
And little Orphant Annie,
All’s a-eatin’ gingerbread
And giggle-un at Granny!
How large was Alexander, father,
That parties designate
The historic gentleman as rather
Inordinately great?
Why, son, to speak with conscientious
Regard for history,
Waiving all claims, of course, to heights pretentious, —
About the size of me.
O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail
As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;
When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky,
And my happy heart brimmed over in the days gone by.
Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep
Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep,
And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below
Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't ust to know
Before we could remember anything but the eyes
Of the angels lookin'out as we left Paradise;
But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle,
And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole.
Over our heads, trailing a wake of air
and an enormous shadow as it passed,
the falcon glided to its trainer’s fist
and settled like a loaded weapon there.
Then, while she fed the bird bit after bit
of... what? rabbit? the trainer gave her talk:
These birds, she said, prey on the small and weak,
adding for the children’s benefit
that this, though it seems cruel, is really good
since otherwise the other rabbits, mice,
squirrels, what have you, would run out of space
and die of illness or a lack of food.
I understand, sure, hygiene, these days, if you're not paying attention,
with all these sicknesses, you think I'm not aware?
I'm not saying not to bathe, are you crazy?
you don't want to wash? I'm just saying to not go overboard,
because there's clean, that's fine, but not clean and shiny,
it's just that people now, bath foams, bath salts,
a bar of soap's not good enough,
no, instead, sometimes, by washing too much,
some things even get lost, the other day,
there was one lady, I didn't know her,
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck,
If a woodchuck could chuck wood.
A peanut sat on a railroad track,
His heart was all a-flutter.
The five-fifteen came rushing by -
Toot toot! Peanut butter!
A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett,
Built a bridge for the good River Bumpett.
A mistake in the plan
Left a gap in the span,
But he said, “Well, they'll just have to jump it.”
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread;
And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
