Rhymes Without Reason

Wednesday's weather (Snow !?) certainly seemed to be without reason, and April is National Poetry Month.  What better excuse to share some of my favorite rhymes with you.  Granfa Grig Had A Pig and Other Rhymes Without Reason, a collection of nursery rhymes illustrated and edited by Wallace Trip, has some of the funniest, raunchiest, and yet most beautiful illustrations ever to grace the pages of a children's book.  That's high praise to fit all three qualities in one book.  Now out of print, my dad recently found a copy on E-bay.  I find it just as raucously funny as an adult as I did as a kid.  Even if most kids have no idea what a drunken sot might be, it has a great ring to it!

Who comes here?
A Grenadier.
What do you want?
A pot of Beer.
Where is your money?
I've forgot.
Get you gone
You drunken sot.

   

This page offers an interesting commentary on this poem, a Mother Goose rhyme published in 1765, and the historical background behind many children's nursery rhymes and stories. 

No more rhyming now, I mean it!  Anybody wanna peanut?

Comments

[yooper dad]

Jeannie come tie my
Jeannie come tie my
Jeannie come tie my bonnie cravat
I've tied it behind
I've tied it before
I've tied it so often, I'll tie it no more.

[A passerby]

I was doing a search on weddings and found your page. Beautiful dress!

I also love the Princess Bride reference in this entry. :)