Some Clerihews

William Makepeace Thackeray

Would have adored a frozen daiquiri,

But swallowed down his gin

Without dwelling on what might have been.

Oscar Wilde

Was most unjustly reviled:

Merely for loving his neighbor

He got two years' hard labor.

Arthur Hugh Clough

Wrote a lot of stuff,

But whether it was any good at all

I can't recall.

John Dryden     

Never looked for a hole to hide in.

Did he run away from MacFlecknoe?

Heck, no.

Allen Tate

Was a victim of fate;

But let it be said,

So were the Confederate dead.

Said Charles Baudelaire

To Jeanne Duval, "Ma chére,

There have been rumors

That you don't wear bloomers."

Marianne Moore

Was prim and rather dour,

Not at all the sort of poetess

You might interest in coitus.

Paul Gauguin

Was a ladies' man.

He loved them in Tahiti and Provence.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Was a very strange crietzsche:

He dreamt of mounting a little wench

And screaming "Ãœbermensch!"

Charles Bukowski    

Could never find his housekey,

But being a total souse,

He was lucky just to find his house.

Lawrence of Arabia

Had little interest in labia.

No, his idea of joy

Was a slender brown Bedouin boy.

George Herbert, John Donne—

You could pick either one.

And what about Sir Philip Sydney?

He wrote some good poems, didney?

Robert Mezey

From Collected Poems: 1952-1999,
University of Arkansas Press, © 2000.
Reprinted by permission of the author.