I googled that poem, Going on an Errand
It reminded me of a more recent telling of the same story - Don't Forget the Bacon by Pat Hutchins. I loved that book when my children were small. The shopping list gets hopelessly and fantastically garbled though the last item stays the same "and don't forget the bacon". He stops at all the right shops and the shopkeepers help him to decode things so he takes his basketful home - "oh, I forgot the bacon"