Dorothy Parker - esias - Lord Byron - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Ebenezer Elliott - John Byrom - Samuel Johnson - Paul Dehn - Ogden Nash - Anonymous/Authors Unknown - G K Chesterton - John Owen - Edmund Clerihew Bentley - Walter Savage Landor - Walter de la Mare - A E Housman - Benny Hill - Emily Dickinson - Samuel Wilberforce - Bob McCue - John Updike - A P Herbert - Robert Lowell - Wendy Cope - Thomas Hood - George Gamow - Desmond Skirrow - Harry Graham - Alexander Pope - John Wilmot - Hilaire Belloc - J R Pope - Gavin Ewart - George Carlin - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV - Langston Hughes - Tom Lehrer - James Thomson - Spitting Image TV - W S Gilbert - Muddy Waters - William Blake - W H Auden - Kenneth Grahame - Ronald Knox - Spike Milligan - Thomas Hood -
Résumé:
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live. Dorothy Parker, Resume, 1937
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it. Dorothy Parker, Life magazine 2nd June 1927
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania. Dorothy Parker, Comment
If I had a shiny gun
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folks that cause me pains. Dorothy Parker
By the time you say you’re his,
Shivering and sighing
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying –
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying. Dorothy Parker, Unfortunate Coincidence, 1937
If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think, How Lucky Are The Dead. Dorothy Parker
In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you. Dorothy Parker
I never see that prettiest thing –
A cherry bough gone white with Spring –
But what I think, How gay ’twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree. Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well
If I didn’t care for fun and such,
I’d probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn. Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope
Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,
Painter or plumber or never-do-well,
Do me a favor and shut your face –
Poets alone should kiss and tell. Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Dorothy Parker, Inventory 1937
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses. Dorothy Parker, New Item, 1937
Bud, bud, glorious bud
Nothing quite like it for stoning the blood. esias, 2010
There was a time
I could have said
Wooder bin better
To stay in bed.
But now I say,
‘Let’s get up!’
Why?
Dunno.
Give up. esias, Don’t, 1996
Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle,
God’s up there,
The devil’s down there
And here am I.
Trapped.
In the middle. esias, Life is a Steaming Pile of Donkey Doo-Doos, 1996
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z esias, Waiting for a Lecture, 1997
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,
It seemed the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. Lord Byron, re burial of George III
What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, Epigram
What is a communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings;
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny and pocket his shilling. Ebenezer Elliott, Epigram 1850
Some say, that Signor Bononcini,
Compared to Handel’s a mere ninny;
Others aver, to him, that Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange! That such high dispute should be
’Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee. John Byrom, re feuds between Handel & Bononcini, The London Journal 5th June 1725
God bless the king, I mean the faith’s defender;
God bless – (no harm in blessing) – the pretender;
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless them all – that’s quite another thing. John Byrom, Extempore Intended to Allay the Violence of Party Spirit
Come all ye foreign strolling gentry,
Into Great Britain make your entry;
Abjure the Pope, and take the oaths,
And you shall have meat, drink, and clothes. John Byrom, Four Epigrams on the Naturalization Bill (i)
If a man who turnip cries
Cry not when his father dies,
Is it not proof he’d rather
Have a turnip than his father? Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, Epigram I
I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand. ibid. Ballad ii
O nuclear wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I had my arms again. Paul Dehn