Page 85 - Poetry-Books

If your dexterity should be
Increased to some extent,
My poems will get back to me
Before they have been sent.

— Edward Lucas White (Century Magazine, 1898)

Some Plurals

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But a cow if repeated is never called kine,
And the plural of vow is vows, never vine.

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss ever be nicknamed keese?
Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren;
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.
So the English, I think you all will agree,
Is the queerest language you ever did see.

—(Commonwealth)

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