Status Updates From The Best of Ogden Nash

Untitled
Ogden Nash
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No Petrarch I, but you're my Laura;
I'm Tithonius to your Aurora.
With every passing year I wither,
While you develop more come-hither.
If I reach ninety still alive
You'll still be lookign thirty-five,
But don't despise him who adored you--
Whistle, and I will hobble toward you.

Lots of people are richer than me,
Yet pay a slenderer tax;
Their annual levy seems to wane
While their income seems to wax.
Lots of people have stocks and bonds
To further their romances;
I’ve cashed my ultimate Savings Stamp —
But nobody else has Frances.

To My Valentine

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.

Untitled Poem
(For the Baptism of a Friend's Daughter)
Ogden Nash
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No wonder little Mary grins;
She's been washed of all her sins,
When she leaves St Andrew's door
Mary plans to sin some more.

A Boy's Will is the Wind's Will?
Ogden Nash
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Mr Longfellow spoke only part of the truth,
Though a fatherly poet of pre-eminent rank;
A girls' will is the twister's will.
It can drive a parent through a two-inch plank.

I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Coniferous child, when vanilla melts
I’d rather it melted somewhere else.

Exit child with remains of cone.
I sit in the dusk. I am all alone,

Muttering spells like an angry Druid,
Alone, in the dusk, with the cleaning fluid.

Adventures of Isabel

Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely fascinating elf,
But progeny in roistering batches
Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez.

Thunder over the nursery

Listen to me, angel tot,
Whom I love an awful lot,
It will save a barrel of bother
If we understand each other.

Every time that I'm your herder
You think you get away with murder.
All right, infant, so you do,
But only because I want you to.

Well, you may be a genius, child,
And I a parent dull and mild,
In spite of which, and nevertheless,
I could lick you yet, I guess.

The Tale of Custard the Dragon
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Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
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Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Song To Be Sung By The Father Of Infant Female Children
Ogden Nash
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My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
...
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
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Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
With parents who feed and clothe him.
Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,
But I have begun to loathe him.