The Wonderful Old Man
There was an old man
Who lived on a common
And, if fame speaks true,
He was born of a woman.
Perhaps you will laugh,
But for truth I’ve been told
He once was an infant
Tho’ age made him old.
Whene’er he was hungry
He longed for some meat;
And if he could get it
’T was said he would eat.
When thirsty he’d drink
If you gave him a pot,
And what he drank mostly
Ran down his throat.
He seldom or never
Could see without light,
And yet I’ve been told he
Could hear in the night.
He has oft been awake
In the daytime, ’t is said,
And has fallen asleep
As he lay in his bed.
’T is reported his tongue
Always moved when he talk’d,
And he stirred both his arms
And his legs when he walk’d;
And his gait was so odd
Had you seen him you ‘d burst,
For one leg or t’ other
Would always be first.
His face was the drollest
That ever was seen,
For if ’t was not washed
It seldom was clean;
His teeth he expos’d when
He happened to grin,
And his mouth stood across
’Twixt his nose and his chin.
When this whimsical chap
Had a river to pass,
If he couldn’t get over
He stayed where he was.
’T is said he ne’er ventured
To quit the dry ground,
Yet so great was his luck
He never was drowned.
At last he fell sick,
As old chronicles tell,
And then, as folks say,
He was not very well.
But what was as strange
In so weak a condition,
As he could not give fees
He could get no physician.
What wonder he died!
Yet ’t is said that his death
Was occasioned at last
By the loss of his breath.
But peace to his bones
Which in ashes now moulder.
Had he lived a day longer
He’d have been a day older.
Anonymous