Good-By Now Or Pardon My Gauntlet Poem by Ogden Nash

Good-By Now Or Pardon My Gauntlet

Rating: 2.9


Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
She say That is correct, and you say Yes,
And she disrobes and you undress.
Confronted by a mouse or moose,
You turn green, she turns chartroose.
Her speech is new-minted, freshly quarried;
She has a fore-head, you have a forehead.
Nor snake nor slowworm draweth nigh her;
You go to bed, she doth retire.
To Janet, births are blessed events,
And odors that you smell she scents.
Replete she feels, when her food is yummy,
Not in the stomach but the tummy.
If urged some novel step to show,
You say Like this, she says Like so.
Her dear ones don't die, but pass away;
Beneath her formal is lonjeray.
Of refinement she's a fount, or fountess,
And that is why she's now a countess.
She was asking for the little girls' room
And a flunky though she said the earl's room.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Walt Reid 05 January 2018

Ogden you were an artist of wonderful originality. Few could paint pictures in my mind with words you did. If only I could aspire to your wit and great legacy.

0 0 Reply
Michael Shepherd 26 July 2006

Dear Ogden, why not switch the last two lines around?

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Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash

New York / United States
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