Little Thomas
By
F. Gwynne Evans


Thomas was a little glutton
Who took four times beef or mutton
Then undid a lower button
And consumed plum-duff.
And when he could scarcely swallow
Asked if there was more to follow
As he'd still a tiny hollow
That he'd like to stuff.


He was told you won't get thinner
While you will east so much dinner;
If you don't take care some inner
part of you will burst.
He replied, "What does it matter
Even if I do get fatter?
Put more pudding on my platter
Let it do its worst."

Then one day, and little wonder,
There was a report like thunder
Doors and windows flew asunder
And the cat had fits.
As his anxious friends foreboded
Dangerously overloaded
Thomas had at length exploded
And was blown to bits.

His old nurse cried, much disgusted
"There, just when I've swept and dusted,
Drat the boy! He's gone and busted
Making such a mess."
While the painful task of peeling
Thomas off the walls and ceiling
Gave his family a feeling
Of sincere distress.

When a boy, who so obese is,
Scatters into tiny pieces
And the cause of his decease is
Having overdined
It is hard to send a version
Of the facts of his dispersion
To the papers for insertion
Which will be refined.

Any sorrowing relation
Asked for an elucidation
Of that awful detonation
Was obliged to say:
"Germans have not been to bomb us:
It was only little Thomas,
Who, alas! departed from us
In that noisy way.