The Lady's Maid Song

by John Hollander

When Adam found his rib was gone

He cursed and sighed and cried and swore,

And looked with cold resentment on

The creature God had used it for.

All love's delight were quickly spent,

And soon his sorrows multiplied;

He learnt to blame his discontent

On something stolen from his side.

And in every age we find

Each Jack destroying every Joan,

Divides and conquers woman kind

In vengence for the missing bone;

By day he spins out quaint conceits

With gossip, flattery and song

And then at night between the sheets

He wrongs the girl to right the wrong.

Though shoulder, bosom, lips and knee

Are praised in every kind of art,

Here in Love's true anatomy;

His rib is gone: He'll have her heart.

So women bear the debt alone

And live eternally distressed

For though we throw the dog his bone,

He wants it back with interest.

A Tense Time with Verbs

By Richard Lederer

The verbs in English are a fright.
How can we learn to read and write?
Today we speak, but first we spoke;
Some faucets leak, but never loke.
Today we write, but first we wrote;
We bite our tongues, but never bote.
Each day I teach, for years I taught,
And preachers preach, but never praught.
This tale I tell; this tale I told;
I smell the flowers, but never smold.
If knights still slay, as once they slew,
Then do we play, as once we plew?
If I still do as once I did,
Then do cows moo, as they once mid?
I love to win, and games I've won;
I seldom sin, and never son.
I hate to lose, and games I lost;
I didn't choose, and never chost.

I love to sing, and songs I sang;
I fling a ball, but never flang.
I strike that ball, that ball I struck;
This poem I like, but never luck.
I take a break, a break I took;
I bake a cake, but never book.
I eat that cake, that cake I ate;
I beat an egg, but never bate.
I often swim, as I once swam;
I skim some milk, but never skam.
I fly a kite that I once flew;
I tie a knot, but never tew.
I see the truth, the truth I saw;
I flee from falsehood, never flaw.
I stand for truth, as I once stood;
I land a fish, but never lood.
About these verbs I sit and think.
These verbs don't fit. They seem to wink
At me, who sat for years and thought
Of verbs that never fat or wrought.