Look! Look! A new song. It is made of limericks, eleven of them in fact.

Like another song of mine, this one began with an intentional misreading of the letters of Herman Melville. It started out whimsical and only slightly introspective, but became more Lenten as it went on, perhaps because it was in fact Lent.

Here are the words:

Well he has but a mouthful of brains
Who has never been glad when it rains,
Who has never been cold
When the strains of the old
Pannikhida invade his refrains.

And he has but a thimble of grit
Who has never surrendered his wit
To the song of the loon
And the waves and the moon
And the shimmer that swims under it.

And his conscience is lazy and bad
Who has never supposed himself mad
And who gluey with wine
When the sun doesn’t shine
In the mornings has never been sad.

(mm-hmm hmm-hm-hm hm-hm-hm hmm)

There are songs about perfect intentions
Of which most are post-factum inventions.
They dangle their tropes
Like a puppeter’s ropes
As they angle for honorable mentions.

And he can’t see the woods for the trees
Who can squarely discern his disease
And can stake out his goal
In the terms of control
But can not bring his soul to her knees.

And he can’t see the trees for the wood
Who can plainly perceive his own good
But who waits for the rains
To produce all the gains
And he never shall do as he should.

(mm-hmm hmm-hm-hm hm-hm-hm hmm)

And his system is far too complete
Be it ever so clean and discrete
If he hides his travail
In a mystical veil
And he can’t find the way to his feet.

He has lost the best half of his mind
Who can never regard himself blind;
But he sets up his eye
On a pole in the sky,
Dropping answers on all he can find.

And his heart has seen seventeen hells
Who can not tell the wind from the swells
Til he fixes his sight
On some heavenly light
For his life is a long Dardanelles.

(mm-hmm hmm-hm-hm hm-hm-hm hmm)

And so after all that, here you are.
I’m surprised that you made it this far.
I might have rescinded
A song so long-winded,
But I like to play the guitar.

And there was an old poet called Boor
Whose limericks none could endure.
His metre was cloying.
His rhymes were annoying.
At least his intentions were pure.