Some clerihews by W. H. Auden

 

Edward Lear

Was haunted by the fear

While traveling in Albania

Of contracting kleptomania.

     -o-

Louis Pasteur

So his colleagues aver,

Lived on excellent terms

With most of his germs.

     -o-

No one could ever inveigle

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Into offering the slightest apology

For his Phenomenology.

     -o-

When the young Kant

Was told to kiss his aunt,

He obeyed the Categorical Must,

But only just.

     -o-

Charles Dickens

Could find nothing to say to chickens,

But gossiping with rabbits

Became one of his habits. 

W. H. Auden's series of clerihews appears first in Homage to Clio, but then with illustrations by Filippo Sanjust in Academic Graffiti. That's Sanjust's drawing above of Dickens/with rabbits and chickens. The chickens look rather offended to me.

The clerihew form was invented by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley (1875-1956), also author of the mystery series featuring Philip Trent, the first of which is Trent's Last Case. (The last shall be first?) Since we're here...I can't resist quoting my favorite Clerihew clerihew:

George the Third

Ought never to have occurred.

One can only wonder

At so grotesque a blunder.

And, oh heck, it's catching...

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

acted most irreverently,

like he was one of the playahs

with Dorothy L. Sayahs.

Or supply your own concluding couplet! 😜