1. Anonymous
How Paddy Got “Under Government”

A Place under Government
  Was all that Paddy wanted.
He married soon a scolding wife,
  And thus his wish was granted.
Poet: Anonymous
Saint Anthony’s Sermon to the Fishes

Saint Anthony at church
Was left in the lurch,
So he went to the ditches
And preached to the fishes;
They wriggled their tails,
In the sun glanced their scales.

The carps, with their spawn,
Are all hither drawn;
Have opened their...

Poet: Anonymous
King John and the Abbot of Canterbury

From “Percy’s Reliques”
AN ANCIENT story I ’ll tell you anon
Of a notable prince that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.

And I ’ll tell you a story, a story so merry,...

Poet: Anonymous
The Vicar of Bray

IN 1 good King Charles’s golden days,
  When loyalty no harm meant,
A zealous high-churchman was I,
  And so I got preferment.
To teach my flock I never missed:
  Kings were by God appointed,
And lost are those that dare resist
  Or touch...

Poet: Anonymous
The Fine Old English Gentleman

I ’LL 1 sing you a good old song,
  Made by a good old pate,
Of a fine old English gentleman
  Who had an old estate,
And who kept up his old mansion
  At a bountiful old rate;
With a good old porter to relieve
  The old poor at his gate,...

Poet: Anonymous
Swell’s Soliloquy

I Don’t appwove this hawid waw;
  Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes;
And guns and dwums are such a baw,—
  Why don’t the pawties compwamise?

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
  But why must all the vulgah cwowd
Pawsist in spawting unifawms...

Poet: Anonymous
The Mystified Quaker in New York

Respected Wife: By these few lines my whereabouts thee ’ll learn:
Moreover, I impart to thee my serious concern.
The language of this people is a riddle unto me;
For words with them are figments of a reckless mockery.
For instance, as I left the cars, a youth with...

Poet: Anonymous
Perils of Thinking

A Centipede was happy quite,
    Until a frog in fun
Said, “Pray, which leg comes after which?”
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
    Considering how to run.
Poet: Anonymous
A Life’s Love

I Loved him in my dawning years—
  Far years, divinely dim;
My blithest smiles, my saddest tears,
  Were evermore for him.
My dreaming when the day began,
  The latest thought I had,
Was still some little loving plan
  To make my darling...

Poet: Anonymous
A Recipe

From Punch’s Poetical Cookery Book
Roasted Sucking-Pig
AIR.—“Scots wha hae.”

COOKS who ’d roast a sucking-pig,
Purchase one not over big;
Coarse ones are not worth a fig;
      So a young one buy.
See that he is scalded well
(That is...

Poet: Anonymous