Explore "The Porridge Poet" by Hugh Lofting on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Dear Children, I would have you know it: / That this is me, the Porridge Poet, / My inspiration's in the ice-box; / My rhymes I pick out from the spice-box.
My verse is very free and easy, / Its flavour sometimes slightly cheesy; / But that, my friends, is no great crime in / The gentle art of kitchen rhymin'.
I've made delicious maccaronics / From peelings off spring philharmonics. / And as for comic songs or ballads, / I turn them out like summer salads.
'Tis to the cook-book that I owe it, / My reputation as a poet. / And if you'll watch my pot a minute / I'll show you how I mix things in it.
Now take a pint of vermicelli / And pound it to a nice smooth jelly; / If necessary use a hammer. / Then add a pinch or two of grammar.
Shake in an ounce of sifted syntax / And half a teaspoonful of tin tacks, / Then flavour with eggstravaganza, / And there you have a lovely stanza!