Patrick Barrington
Patrick Barrington Poems
I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread
I made him my companion on many cheery walks
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalk
...
I had a duck-billed platypus when I was up at Trinity,
With whom I soon discovered a remarkable affinity.
He used to live in lodgings with myself and Arthur Purvis,
And we all went up together for the Diplomatic Service.
...
When I was a lad of twenty and was working in High Street, Ken.,
I made quite a pile in a very little while - I was a bustle maker then.
Then there was work in plenty, and I was a thriving man
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade, since the bustle making trade began.
...
I met a lady in the wood.
No mortal maid, I knew, was she;
She was no thing of flesh and blood,
No child of human ancestry.
...
My love is a Theosophist
And reads the Ramayana;
Her luncheon is a pot of tea,
Her breakfast a banana.
...
There's havoc on the staircase where the guests come streaming,
Shirt-fronts shining and tiaras gleaming,
...
When I was young and ignorant I loved a Miss McDougall,
Our days were spent in happiness, although our means were frugal;
...
Patrick Barrington Biography
Patrick William Daines Barrington, 11th Viscount Barrington of Ardglass (29 October 1908 – 6 April 1990) was an Irish peer and a writer of humorous verse. He was the son of the Hon. Walter Bernard Louis Barrington and Eleanor Nina Snagge. He was educated at Eton College and at Magdalen College, Oxford University. He is remembered for his humorous verse, which was featured in Punch Magazine during the 1930s. A collection of his poems, including his best-known work, The Diplomatic Platypus, was published: On 4 October 1960 he succeeded to the titles of 5th Baron Shute of Becket, co. Berks; 11th Viscount Barrington of Ardglass, co. Down; and 11th Baron Barrington of Newcastle, Co. Limerick. On his death, his titles became extinct.)
The Best Poem Of Patrick Barrington
I Had A Hippopotamus
I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread
I made him my companion on many cheery walks
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalk
His charming eccentricities were known on every side
The creatures' popularity was wonderfully wide
He frolocked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles
If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or the hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again
I had a Hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to have an end
Time takes alas! our joys from us and rids us of our blisses
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamisses
My house keeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye
She did not want a colony of hippotami
She borrowed a machine gun from from her soldier nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy
My house now lacks that glamour that the charming creature gave
The garage where I kept him is now as silent as the grave
No longer he displays among the motor tyres and spanners
His hippopomastery of hippopotamanners
No longer now he gambols in the orchards in the spring
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string
No longer in the morning does the neighbourhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-modulated voice.
I had a hippopotamus but nothing upon earth
Is constant in its happines or lasting in its mirth
No joy that life can give me can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for that might-have-been-a-hippopota-mother
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