Some clerihews by E. Clerihew!

 

Sir Christopher Wren

Said, "I am going to dine with some men.

If anybody calls

Say I'm designing St. Paul's"

     -o-

The younger Van Eyck

Was christened Jan, and not Mike.

The thought of this curious mistake

Often kept him awake.

     -o-

The intrepid Ricardo

With characteristic bravado

Alluded openly to Rent

Wherever he went.

     -o-

Professor Dewar

Is a better man than you are.

None of you asses

Can condense gases.

     -o-

John Stuart Mill

By a mighty effort of will

Overcame his natural bonhomie

And wrote "Principles of Political Economy"

Mill demonstrating a mighty effort of will

Until recently the only clerihews by E. C. Bentley I had read were ones found in various anthologies of light verse. Auden, who clearly likes them, has a bunch in his Oxford Book of Light Verse, for instance. But then I thought about the dates and realized that the first of his three books of clerihews, Biography for Beginners, might be available at Project Gutenberg. And so it was! And with illustrations by G. K. Chesterton. (Whom I didn't know could draw, but clearly can...) 

I had to look up James Dewar, but he invented the vacuum flask. 

Note: the index to Biography for Beginners is pretty hilarious, too. I don't know why Bentley has it in for Christopher Wren, but he clearly does.

Via Carol I came across this useful introduction to the form. 

Turns out clerihews are even more catching than I realized! 

The idea of publishing poem posts on Thursday originates with Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness. Brona has some great animal prayer poems in an inadvertent teaser 😉 for Rumer Godden reading week.

Some clerihews by W. H. Auden

 

Edward Lear

Was haunted by the fear

While traveling in Albania

Of contracting kleptomania.

     -o-

Louis Pasteur

So his colleagues aver,

Lived on excellent terms

With most of his germs.

     -o-

No one could ever inveigle

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Into offering the slightest apology

For his Phenomenology.

     -o-

When the young Kant

Was told to kiss his aunt,

He obeyed the Categorical Must,

But only just.

     -o-

Charles Dickens

Could find nothing to say to chickens,

But gossiping with rabbits

Became one of his habits. 

W. H. Auden's series of clerihews appears first in Homage to Clio, but then with illustrations by Filippo Sanjust in Academic Graffiti. That's Sanjust's drawing above of Dickens/with rabbits and chickens. The chickens look rather offended to me.

The clerihew form was invented by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley (1875-1956), also author of the mystery series featuring Philip Trent, the first of which is Trent's Last Case. (The last shall be first?) Since we're here...I can't resist quoting my favorite Clerihew clerihew:

George the Third

Ought never to have occurred.

One can only wonder

At so grotesque a blunder.

And, oh heck, it's catching...

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

acted most irreverently,

like he was one of the playahs

with Dorothy L. Sayahs.

Or supply your own concluding couplet! 😜