Edwin Carty Ranck

“ O, the circus parade! O, the circus parade!
It lays all the politics back in the shade,
And the merchants forget that they've got any trade,
While many remember they've never been paid
As they rushed out to look at the circus parade;
And preachers who used to be terribly staid
Yell just like boys at the circus parade.
Every one's there, both the mistress and maid,
All looking on at the circus parade. ”

“ Who had a sure-nuff cannon that made all kinds of noise;
And when the cannon wouldn't go he blew into the muzzle,
But what became of Willie's teeth has always been a puzzle.
How the folks looked askance
At the seats of our pants,
When those giant skyrockets
Went off in our pockets!
Gee whiz!
What fun the Fourth is!
When the red-hot July sun began to wink the clouds away,
We were out with whoops and shoutings to celebrate the day.
With piece of punk in one hand and crackers in the other,
We would troop home later in the day for linseed oil and mother. ”

“ Dryden has been dead several years.
"But what," you may ask, "is the object of nonsense verse?" Most assuredly to make one laugh. That masterpiece of nonsense "Alice In Wonderland" and its companion volume "Through The Looking Class" are absurd books, but their very absurdity is what appeals to us most. Their author, Mr. Lewis Carroll was, in private life a very sober gentleman (at least we hope so) . Nonsense is the salt of life with which we season the dry food of everyday cooking. ”

“ To that white and silent crowd:
"'Tis a somber month to live in or to die."
And then as if in answer to my whisper,
Came a voice of some foul fiend from Hell:
"No longer live say I,
'Tis better far to die
And let the falling snow-flakes sound the knell."
Perched upon a tombstone sat the creature
Grewsome as an unquenched, burning lust. ”

“ Is relished by the wisest men."
[8] Even serious old Longfellow had this feeling in his bones when he wrote the immortal lines which all of us recall from childhood:
"There was a little girl
And she had a little curl
Which hung way down on her forehead;
And when she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad, she was horrid."
This is nonsense pure and simple and even the most ardent admirers of Mr. Longfellow must, when they try to make "forehead" and "horrid" rhyme, admit that it was very poor verse for the author of "Evangeline." ”

“ Yes, it cannot wait much longer—like the flakes my thoughts are melting
'Tis here, 'tis there, in fact, 'tis everywhere—the snow I mean.
Like the thick syrup which covers buckwheat cakes it lies.
[48] The man who says he don't regret its passing also lies. ”

“ Bret Harte flew off at a tangent when he wrote about "Ah Sin, The Chinaman," a nonsense poem that gave "Bill Nye" his pseudonym. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay." Rudyard Kipling is often "caught with the goods [9] on him" and Mark Twain wrote an "Ode to Stephen Dowling Botts." ”

“ And even today in many of the rural districts there are old farmers who never heard of Burgess and his "purple cow" who will tell you solemnly that "there is a cow of a sort of purplish color." Which goes to prove that after all nonsense is only sense plus—NON. [10]
[11] The poems in this collection have appeared from time to time in The Kentucky Post, The Cincinnati Post, The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, Humanity and The Valley Magazine. ”

“ It is also true of the magazine poets. It really never pays to think. Thinking is too much like work. After reading these rhymes you will not think that the writer ever did think, which after all is the right way to think. ”