At Dingle Bank

He lived at Dingle Bank -- he did;--
    He lived at Dingle bank;
And in his garden was one Quail,
    Four tulips, and a Tank;
And from his windows he could see
The otion and the River Dee.

His house stood on a Cliff, -- it did,
    In aspic it was cool;
And many thousand little boys
    Resorted to his school,
Where if of progress they could boast
He gave them heaps of buttered toast.

But he grew rabid-wroth, he did,
    If they neglected books,
And dragged them to adjacent cliffs
    With beastly Button Hooks,
And there with fatuous glee he threw
Them down into the otion blue.

And in the sea they swam, they did,--
    All playfully about,
And some eventually became
    Sponges, or speckled trout;--
But Liverpool doth all bewail
Their Fate;--likewise his Garden Quail.

[from The Complete Nonsense Book,
edited by Lady Strachey, 1912, p. 47.
Etext prepared by Doug Love.]

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