Ah! Those days!

Reading a blog from a very old friend I was reminded of those lovely days in the seemingly remote past ( God! are we THAT Grey?!) when we read poetry for its humor and enjoyed it DESPITE the curriculum that forced these down our gullet... and sometimes inspite of the teachers who made it a point to drown all the humor out of the written word! ( Teachers Please pardon!)

One of the most lasting impressions on me was of an enchanting man called Ogden Nash. I loved his humor in The Born Spectator ( I think that was the title!) and in a few others. I loved him so much that I decided to set upon a mission- collect all that I could lay my hands on. Each piece that I read made me crave for more. That is the highest compliment one can give an author of any style or genre or even any form of literature.

Among my personal collections of his works were:

1. Song to be sung by the father of infant female children
2. Complaint to four angels
3. Thunder over the nursery

And that put me on his trail.

I bought a collection of his verses- Candy is Dandy.

Those were the days before the Internet was a part of our daily lives. You had to sit in a library or a book-store for hours looking for that elusive title or work that you wanted. You could not simply type the word on a computer screen and hope to look up a thousand or more pages that could satisfy our curiosity.

Incidently, typing Ogden Nash on Google.com throws up 5,16,000 pages/ sites in 0.19 sec!!!!! Oggle all you want! I could never have dreamed it would be so easy to know so much about this great poet somewhere in the future.

There is even a Wikepedia entry that is called- quite simply- Ogden Nash.

Now I know he was a Leo ( Aw! Shucks! I always thought he was a Gemini- with such a flair for the language he had to be an artistic zodiac. But he was a Lion!)

Now I also know that he lived to the ripe old age of nearly seventy ( 1902- 1971) and had a great life writing but died of an unfortunate illness Crohn's Disease in John's Hopkin's, Baltimore in May 1971.

One of his oneliners are irrepressible!

People who work sitting down are paid more that people who work standing up.

And then the playful rhyme that was inimitably his unique style...

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree.

Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,

I'll never see a tree at all.

Interestingly, this versatile man was also a lyricist and wrote the songs for a Broadway Musical- One touch of Venus among others.

I would love to finish with one of his poems... and hope I find others who love him as much and want to have a collection of his available to savour

Song to be sung by the father of infant Female children

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise my, my blood runs cold
when little boys run by,
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then, they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry,
No matter how they tarry, Eventually they do marry.
And swine among pearls,
They marry little girls!

Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
with parents who feed him and clothe him.
Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,
But I have begun to loathe him.
Yes! I loathe him with a loathing shameless
This child who to me is nameless
This bachelor child in his carriage,
gives never a thought to marrige,
But a person can hardly say knife,
before he will want himself a wife!

I never see an infant (male)
A-sleeping in the sun,
without I turn a trifle pale,
And think," Is he the one?"
Oh, first he'll want to crop his curls
And then he'll want a pony,
And then he'll think of pretty girls
And Holy Matrimony.
He'll put away his pony
And sigh for matrimony
A cat without a mouse
Is he without a spouse.

Oh, somewhere he bubbles bubbles of milk
And quietly sucks his thumbs,
His cheeks are roses painted on silk
And his teeth are tucked in his gums.
But Alas! the teeth will begin to grow,
And the bubbles will cease to bubble;
Given a score of years or so,
The roses will turn to stubble.
He'll sell a bond or he'll write a book,
And his eyes will get that acquisitive look,
And raging and ravenous for a kill,
He'll boldly ask for the hand of Jill.
This infant whose middle
is diapered still
will want to marry
my daughter Jill!!

Ah1 sweet be his slumber and moist his middle!
My dreams, I fear, are infanticiddle.
A fig for embryo Lohen grins!
I'll open all of his safety pins!
I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,
And give him readings from Aristotle.
Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring
And tabasco sauce for his teething ring.

Then perhaps, he'll struggle through fire and water
To marry someone else's daughter!



I have to specially thank Swati for refreshing my jaded memory cells and reminding me about Nash. Please do see her blog for several interesting sites she has researched and reviewed.

www://hellonetbaby.blogspot.com/