“After thinking it over I’ve found
(And I think that my logic is sound)
Though I can’t go about
For they’ll not let me out
They must let my stripes go around.”

There was a Fish lived in a pool
Who didn’t like to go to school
And hooky he’d play
Every sunshiny day
And that’s why they called him a fool.

When the Squirrel met a Magpie
In the top of a tree very high
They started to fight
To claw and to bite
And you should have seen the “fur fly.”

A camel, with practical views
On the nutritive value of shoes,
To the mosque would repair
While the folks were at prayer,
Little dreaming their soles they would lose.

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXVI, July 1913, no. 3, p. 480.]

There once was a kind armadillo,
Who solaced a lone weeping-willow.
Said he: “Do not weep!
What you need is some sleep;
Pray rest on my shell as a pillow.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXVI, June 1913, no. 2, p. 320.]

Once a pound-keeper chanced to impound
An ounce that was straying around.
The pound-keeper straight
Was fined for false weight,
Since he’d only one ounce in his pound.

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXVI, May 1913, no. 1, p. 158.]

Said the oyster: “To-morrow’s May-day;
But don’t call me early, I pray.
Just tuck me instead
In my snug oyster-bed,
And there till September I’ll stay.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXVI, June 1913, no. 1, p. 157.]

Said a squirrel who raced with a fan:
“You are built on a wonderful plan;
But you’d better take care
Or you’ll lose all you hair.
I advise you to stop, if you can.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXV, April 1913, no. 6, p. 962.]

There was a young waitress named Myrtle
Who carried a plate of mock turtle,
When, strange to relate,
She tripped, and the plate
That once was mock turtle turned turtle.

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXV, April 1913, no. 5, p. 961.]

Said the mole: “You would never suppose
How far back my family goes.
The first of my name
From Normandy came
On William the Conqueror’s nose.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXV, March 1913, no. 4, p. 802.]