The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #20722   Message #4170303
Posted By: Jim Dixon
19-Apr-23 - 03:17 PM
Thread Name: Songs About Disease
Subject: Lyr Add: SNEEZLES (A. A. Milne)
Mrrzy mentioned this on 13 Dec 13.

From Now We are Six by A[lan] A[lexander] Milne (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1927), page 12. I have tried to regularize the stanza and line breaks, which are very irregular in the original, although the meter and rhyme are regular.


SNEEZLES
By A. A. Milne

Christopher Robin
Had wheezles and sneezles.
They bundled him into his bed.
They gave him what goes
With a cold in the nose
And some more for a cold in the head.

They wondered if wheezles
Could turn into measles,
If sneezles would turn into mumps.
They examined his chest
For a rash, and the rest
Of his body for swellings and lumps.

They sent for some doctors
In sneezles and wheezles
To tell them what ought to be done.
All sorts and conditions
Of famous physicians
Came hurrying round at a run.

They all made a note
Of the state of his throat.
They asked if he suffered from thirst.
They asked if the sneezles
Came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezle came first.

They said: "If you teazle
A sneezle or wheezle,
A measle may easily grow,
But humour or pleazle
The wheezle or sneezle,
The measle will certainly go."

They expounded the reazles
For sneezles and wheezles,
The manner of measles when new.
They said: “If he freezles
In draughts and in breezles,
Then phtheezles may even ensue.”

Christopher Robin
Got up in the morning.
The sneezles had vanished away,
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky:
"Now, how to amuse them today?”