700 Limerick Lyrics: A Collection Of Choice Humorous Versifications (1906) - Tapa blanda

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It would seem as though the memory of man runneth not to the contrary of the limerick. That is to say, this particular form of versification is not to be traced to its beginnings. Just why it is called a limerick, none can assuredly say. But, whatever its origin, it is an institution provocative of wit of many and the amusement of all. The English-speaking world knows of thousands, some composed for special occasions and speedily perishing; other with the vitality of real genius in them. Evening Star, Washington. There was once a poet named I mmerick, Who worked forty days on a limerick, At the end of which time. He remarked of his rhyme, There sa limp in the limb of my limerick. I never could quite see the trick, I never wrote a limerick, Ive often tried And gone to bed a-feelin sick. A writer in a western paper notes that this is the day of the limerick, and says of this popular form of nonsense verse that it possesses a jingling rhythm which haunts the memory long after the measured sonorousness of an epic or the lilting melody of a lyric have departed. The writer is evidently under the delusion that all nonsense verses are limericks. Now, we cant give a dictionary definition of a limerick, for the reason that the word, for some unaccountable reason, isnt given; but at least we know one when we see one. Edward Lear has generally been charged with the invention of the five-line stanza well known as the limerick, but he always pleads not guilty, saying the form was suggested to him by a friend as a particularly appropriate model for nonsense rhymes, and this model, if we are not mistaken, was taken from the popular song, All the Way Up to Limerick.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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