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.]

Once a grasshopper (food being scant)
Begged an ant some assistance to grant;
But the ant shook his head,
“I can’t help you,” he said,
“It’s an uncle you need, not an ant.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXIV, September 1912, no. 5, p. 802.]

There once was a cryptical crane,
Who wore an expression of pain
And refused to be fed
Because some one said
He resembled one Hamlet, a Dane.

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXIV, September 1912, no. 5, p. 801.]

There was a cantankerous ‘gator
For whom ‘t was no pleasure to cater.
If he happened to find
No dish to his mind,
He would like as not swallow the waiter.

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXIV, June 1912, no. 2, p. 321.]

There once was a provident puffin
Who ate all the fish he could stuff in.
Said he, “‘T is my plan
To eat when I can:
When there’s nuffin’ to eat I eat nuffin’.”

[Oliver Herford in The Century Magazine. Vol. LXXXIII, December 1911, no. 2, p. 319.]

A brilliant young lawyer named Hughie,
Invited a girl to chop suey,
It fell on the floor,
But they brought her some more,
And she said, “Holy Cats, ain’t it goo-ey.”

[Foolish Limericks Now and Then are Relished by the Best of Men. Chicago Tribune, 27 March 2007, panel 4.]

There was once a man of Oporta,
Who daily got shorter and shorter,
The reason he said
Was the hod on his head,
Which was filled with the heaviest mortar.

His sister, named Lucy O’Finner,
Grew constantly thinner and thinner;
The reason was plain,
She slept out in the rain,
And was never allowed any dinner.

Lewis Carroll (1846)