All About Limerick Day

Rev up your rhyming spirits, dear friends: Today is Limerick Day, the latest in an endless string of odd holidays we just love to celebrate.

Limerick Day

Limerick Day is celebrated in honor of the birth of English writer Edward Lear, who is credited with making the limerick popular. A limerick, in case you aren’t aware, is a five-line poem in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, and the third and fourth lines also rhyme.

Here’s one of the limericks credited to Lear:

There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, ‘Does it buzz?’
He replied, ‘Yes, it does!’
‘It’s a regular brute of a Bee!’

Lear lived from 1812 until 1888. You can read all about his life here and check out much of his work here.

And, for the love of limericks, if you leave a comment — make it rhyme.