Oliver Herford
Oliver Herford was born in December, 1863, at Manchester, England. He studied art in London and at Julien’s in Paris, turned to literature as a pastime and, about 1890, came to the United States, where he has lived ever since.
Herford, celebrated as a wit as well as a draughtsman and versifier, is the author of no less than twenty volumes of light verse, prose pasquinades and burlesques. His The Bashful Earthquake (1898), Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten (1904) and This Giddy Globe (1919) show Herford’s delicate skill and his versatile dexterity. These volumes, like most of Herford’s, are embellished by his own drawings, which are fully as graceful as the accompanying verses.
Earth15
If this little world to-night
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing, headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things—
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggars, millionaires, and mice,
Men and maggots all as one
As it falls into the sun....
Who can say but at the same
Instant from some planet far,
A child may watch us and exclaim:
“See the pretty shooting star!”
The Elf and the Dormouse
Under a toadstool crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool, sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf, frightened and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter—maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile.
Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse—“Good gracious me!
“Where is my toadstool?” loud he lamented.
—And that’s how umbrellas first were invented.