Strictly Germ-Proof

The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;
It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized.

They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.

In sulphureted hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And 'lected it a member of the Fumigated Band.

There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup,
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.

Arthur Guiterman

Arthur Guiterman was an American writer and poet best known for his humorous verse. Born on November 20, 1871, Guiterman co-founded the Poetry Society of America in 1910 and served as its president from 1925 to 1926. His poems often included witty observations and clever wordplay, making him a popular poet during his time. He passed away on January 11, 1943. Despite his prominence in the early 20th century, he is less well-known today.

Arthur Guiterman

Sketch From The Life, A

Arthur Guiterman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Germ

I took to khaki at a word,
And fashioned dreams of wonder.
I rode the great sea like a bird,
Chock full of blood and thunder.
I saw myself upon the field
Of battle, framed in glory,
Compelling stubborn foes to yield
As captives to my sword and shield,
This is another story.

We sat about in sun and sand,
We broke old Cairo's images,
Met here and there a swarthy band
In little, friendly scrimmages,
And here it is I start to kid
No Moslem born can hit me.
The Germ then that had long laid hid
Came out of Pharaoh's pyramid,
And covertly he bit me.

For some few days I wore an air
Of pensive introspection,
And then I curled down anywhere.
They whispered of infection,
And hoist me on two sticks as though
I bore the leper'...

Edward

The Bath

Hang garlands on the bathroom door;
    Let all the passages be spruce;
For, lo, the victim comes once more,
    And, ah, he struggles like the deuce!

Bring soaps of many scented sorts;
    Let girls in pinafores attend,
With John, their brother, in his shorts,
    To wash their dusky little friend.

Their little friend, the dusky dog,
    Short-legged and very obstinate,
Faced like a much-offended frog,
    And fighting hard against his fate.

No Briton he! From palace-born
    Chinese patricians he descends;
He keeps their high ancestral scorn;
    His spirit breaks, but never bends.

Our water-ways he fain would'scape;
    He hates the customary bath
That thins his tail and spoils his shape,
    And turns him to a fur-cla...

R. C. Lehmann

The Microbe

The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots,
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen,
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so....
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about!

Hilaire Belloc

Garden-Fancies - II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis

I.

Plague take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centuries back was so good as to die,
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;
This, that was a book in its time,
Printed on paper and bound in leather,
Last month in the white of a matin-prime
Just when the birds sang all together.

II.

Into the garden I brought it to read,
And under the arbute and laurustine
Read it, so help me grace in my need,
From title-page to closing line.
Chapter on chapter did I count,
As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge;
Added up the mortal amount;
And then proceeded to my revenge.

III.

Yonders a plum-tree with a crevice
An owl would build in, were he but sage;
For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-le...

Robert Browning

Songs Of Education: VI. Hygiene

Form 394411102, Sub-Section X

"All practical Eugenists are agreed on the importance of sleep."--The Eugenic Congress.


When Science taught mankind to breathe
A little while ago,
Only a wise and thoughtful few
Were really in the know:
Nor could the Youth his features wreathe,
Puffing from all the lungs beneath:
When Duty whispered softly "Breathe!"
The Youth would answer "Blow!"

When Science proved with lucid care
The need of Exercise,
Our thoughtless Youth was climbing trees
Or lightly blacking eyes:
To reckless idlers breaking bounds
For football or for hare-and-hounds,
Or fighting hard for fourteen rounds,
It came as a surprise.

But when she boldly counsels Sleep
To persons when in bed,
Then, the...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Precocious Baby. A Very True Tale

(To be sung to the Air of the "Whistling Oyster.")

An elderly person a prophet by trade
With his quips and tips
On withered old lips,
He married a young and a beautiful maid;
The cunning old blade!
Though rather decayed,
He married a beautiful, beautiful maid.

She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be,
With her tempting smiles
And maidenly wiles,
And he was a trifle past seventy-three:
Now what she could see
Is a puzzle to me,
In a prophet of seventy seventy-three!

Of all their acquaintances bidden (or bad)
With their loud high jinks
And underbred winks,
None thought they'd a family have but they had;
A dear little lad
Who drove 'em half mad,
For he turned out a horribly fast little cad.

For when he wa...

William Schwenck Gilbert