The Sea Serpent

O wondrous worm that won the Height
Of Fame by keeping out of sight!
Never was known on Land or Sea
Such a Colossal Modesty;
Never such arrogant pretence
Of Ostentatious Diffidence.
Celebrity whom none has seen,
Save some Post Prandial Marine,
No magazine can reproduce
Your Photograph.--Oh, what's the use
Of doing things when one may be
So Famous a Nonentity!

Oliver Herford

Oliver Herford was born in England on December 2, 1860. He was a British-born American writer, artist, and illustrator, often referred to as 'The American Oscar Wilde' for his sharp wit and humorous works. Herford authored and illustrated many books for children and adults, contributing to magazines such as "The Criterion", "Life", and "Punch". He died on July 5, 1935, in France.

Oliver Herford

The Yak.

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

Education

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

Hafiz

Oliver Herford, 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.

To The Mammoth-Tortoise Of The Mascarene Islands.

"Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem
Callida nervis."
Hor. iii. 11.


Monster Chelonian, you suggest
To some, no doubt, the calm,--
The torpid ease of islets drest
In fan-like fern and palm;

To some your cumbrous ways, perchance,
Darwinian dreams recall;
And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;

So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine,--for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A LYRE immense, per se,

A LYRE to which the Muse might chant
A truly "Orphic tale,"
Could she but find that public want,
A Bard--of equal scale!

Oh, for a Bard of awful words,
And lungs serenely strong,
To sweep from your sonorous chords
Niagaras of song,

Till, dinned by that tremendous str...

Henry Austin Dobson

The Fish

Dark the sea was: but I saw him,
One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.

I have heard the hoarse deniers,
I have known the wordy wars;
I have seen a man, by shouting,
Seek to orphan all the stars.

I have seen a fool half-fashioned
Borrow from the heavens a tongue,
So to curse them more at leisure--
--And I trod him not as dung.

For I saw that finny goblin
Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
On the secret face of God.

Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,
Bring the age by reason fed!
(He that sitteth in the heavens,
'He shall laugh'--the prophet said.)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Mermaid

Although a Fishwife in a sense,
She does not barter Fish for Pence.
Fisher of Men, her Golden Nets
For foolish Sailormen she sets.
All day she combs her hair and longs
For Dimpled Feet and Curling-tongs.
All night she dreams in ocean caves
Of Low tide Shoes and Marcel Waves.
And while the Fishwife, making sales,
May sell her wares upon her scales,
The Mermaid, wonderful to tell,
Must wear her scales upon hersel'.

Oliver Herford

The Virtuoso

Whilom by silver Thames's gentle stream,
In London town there dwelt a subtile wight;
A wight of mickle wealth, and mickle fame,
Book-learn'd and quaint: a Virtuoso hight.
Uncommon things, and rare, were his delight;
From musings deep his brain ne'er gotten ease,
Nor ceased he from study, day or night;
Until (advancing onward by degrees)
He knew whatever breeds on earth, or air, or seas.
He many a creature did anatomize,
Almost unpeopling water, air, and land;
Beasts, fishes, birds, snails, caterpillars, flies,
Were laid full low by his relentless hand,
That oft with gory crimson was distain'd:
He many a dog destroy'd, and many a cat;
Of fleas his bed, of frogs the marshes drain'd,
Could tellen if a mite were lean or fat,
And read a lecture o'er the entrai...

Mark Akenside

Seashore

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
Am I not always here, thy summer home?
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
Was ever building like my terraces?
Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
A little hut suffices like a town.
I make your sculptured architecture vain,
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home,
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes,
Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs
Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea,
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Fish Answers

Amazing monster! that, for aught I know,
With the first sight of thee didst make our race
For ever stare! O flat and shocking face,
Grimly divided from the breast below!
Thou that on dry land horribly dost go
With a split body and most ridiculous pace,
Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace,
Long-useless-finned, haired, upright, unwet, slow!

O breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air,
How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry
And dreary sloth? What particle canst share
Of the only blessed life, the watery?
I sometimes see of ye an actual pair
Go by! linked fin by fin! most odiously.

James Henry Leigh Hunt