Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

March 17, 2016

Posted under

Holiday, Humor, Photography, Poetry

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27 Comments

Three Limerick Tale of Leprechaun and Kitten

Glass plate with a stained glass shamrock

Tiny O’Toole loved a kitten.
He felt himself hard bitten.
“Ouch!” he cried.
“Open wide!”
He stuffed her in his mitten.

“Now, that’s not fitting’,”
complained the kitten.
“Let me out
or I’ll shout.
After all, I’m no Briton!”

O’Toole sipped mead,
and then he agreed:
“Come out!
No doubt
you mistook me for tweed.”

Notes: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The art work is a stained glass plate I made with my daughter. A limerick is a light-hearted poem with the rhyming pattern AABBA. A lines are shorter than B lines. My all-time most viewed post is Leprechaun Limerick. I also wrote a set of three limericks on being Irish.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

March 17, 2015

Posted under

Holiday, Poetry, Tales for Kids of All Ages

Comments

32 Comments

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

You’ll find no green beer here
Or stories with a jeer here
about shamrock socks
or leprechaun jocks;
The Irish won’t get a smear here.

I pass along this fantastic
idea, not sarcastic,
not as a joke
about wee folk,
But with thought enthusiastic:

Storytelling is an art
that makes the Irish a part
of words unfurled
joining the world
To one growing literary chart.

Note: The foregoing are my limericks three, to frame my respect for my Irish heritage. The shamrock is a work in progress by my daughter and I. To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, here are few treasures by Irish authors:

While mantling on the maiden’s cheek
Young roses kindled into thought.

― Thomas Moore

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

― William Butler Yeats

My body was like a harp and her words and gestures
were like fingers running upon the wires.

― James Joyce, Araby

Of the things which nourish the imagination,
humour is one of the most needful,
and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it.

― John Millington Synge

I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground,
rather like the territory of Ireland itself.

― Seamus Heaney

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

March 16, 2014

Posted under

Holiday, Humor, Poetry

Comments

53 Comments

Leprechaun Limerick

Over the rainbow, Finn danced.
Leprechauns watched him, entranced.
Nibbling clover,
The world over,
Until, on their gold, he chanced.

Note: The art work is courtesy of my daughter, and the cookie is courtesy of Antoine’s Pastry Shop. I hope you like this limerick for St. Patrick’s Day! A limerick is usually a silly poem with 5 lines having the rhyming pattern AABBA. The A lines are half again longer than the B lines. Even more relevantly, Limerick is an Irish city on the River Shannon.

Just for the love of limericks, here are a few favorites:

There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, “When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez.”
—Ogden Nash

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”
—Edward Lear

There was a small boy of Quebec
Who was buried in snow to his neck.
When they asked, “Are you friz?”
He replied, “Yes, I is —
But we don’t call this cold in Quebec!”
—Rudyard Kipling

References:
http://www.prose-n-poetry.com/display_work/8009
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-485663-limerick_vacations-i
http://www.thehypertexts.com/The%20Best%20Limericks%20of%20All%20Time.htm
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)