May 12: Limerick Day

It's Limerick Day. Technically speaking, a proper limerick is a sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes obscene verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed couplet. They're not as popular as they used to be, mostly due to the fact we live in an uptight politically correct age and most limericks were aggressively politically incorrect. A lot of famous writers have taken a crack at them, including Shakespeare. Here are two of his: And let me the canakin clink, clink. And let me the canakin clink. A soldier's a man, A life's but a span, Why then not let a soldier drink. And: Come, thou monarch of vine, Plumpy Bacchus with pink eye! Our cares be drowned, With grapes we're crowned, And so cup us till the world go round.

by Frank Kelly Rich · source ↗