Index of First Lines
A glass menagerie is but a perspex arboretum
A glass of milk
A green-feathered duck flew round the moon,
A riddle is a riddle; the opposite is not.
Acrimonious, ineffably large,
All ends in a well,
An I Q test for terrapins
April daze is here again,
Aria in a flat, my love, or are you in a house?
As the chicken to the cabbage, so the walnut to the swede,
As the man with the lawnmower said to his dog,
Ask, and parse, for words are never far;
At first I didn't see the staring eyes
At the edge of the forest a little bird sang
Auntie's Inferno is long since extinct,
Babylon fell and all were incensed.
Banquet's Ghost is here tonight
Buy me a bonnet and polish my boots!
Chopping up the lobster into countless tiny pieces
Crispin comes but once a week
Deep in the dripping forests of Rangoon
Despite my birth, waist-deep in water
Exactly who knew her, or thought it was true
Fever was her first concern
Flaxen diamonds in the field
For one night of rare enchantment, I passed ninety nights of dis-
From divers Welsh poets, from volumes of song,
From Turkestan and Samarkand with opal eyes they came.
From where I stand no sound is heard
Good King Nosnibor looked in
Green grow the noses-o
Had the parson's nose been longer,
Happy New Year to the King and the Queen
He writes with the left who once wrote with the right,
High among the mistletoe I saw a carrot hang
I bled to death on Highgate Hill.
I cannot still endure the gaze of Huckleberry Finn.
I hate fish
I haven't heard the telephone since 1963
I knew a girl who ate no pears.
I know what she says but I dread what she thinks
I leapt from the stair with a lightning step
I learned from the minstrel the Songs of the East
I listened to your vibraphone with nothing but alarm
I must go down to the woods again, to the woods of far Bombay
I, O King, am the Welder's son, and my father now is dead!
I rode to the sea on the back of a goat
I saw ten children every afternoon.
I seem to fly across a thousand themes:
I sing of rabbits and the pristine rat,
I sit upon the topmost bough,
I sought the truth, the truth I sought.
I stand alone, through having loaned a stand.
I tried to count the Pharaohs at the bottom of my garden,
I wandered lonely as a twit,
I was always sad when the people round me said
I wish I were a porcupine upon the banks of Dee
I've lived all my life on an island so rare,
If aught of love should make her heart despair
If I trust you now
If you see a dustbin, paint it black,
In a fairy grotto in sultry Bangor
In the evening came the cycles.
In the heart of East Dulwich spake oracle sage,
In the mountains of Tibet,
In trying to win her the sinner is saved
It is an oft-forgotten fact
It was very, very sharp, and she screamed a little scream:
It wasn't midnight when the maiden screamed
Keep all virgins equal now, for ninety-five are gone!
Koalas, voles and eagle-owls and ninety-five gazelles
Labour saving African assistant to the Duke
Leprosy is no doubt apt
Let me know the day before you promise to forget,
Let time and tide for no man wait, for no man but for me,
Let us drink a Hungarian toast to the Whale!
Medieval monks may throng your halls
Mother, O Mother, I'm missing your meow!
My favourite pet was a raspberry flan
My love, I know no softer words
My love's like a pea-green leek,
My memory is like a little mushroom in the sea
My syphilitic repartee
No bones for those that toil at night!
Not of this world!" the polecat cried,
O Buckthorpe, sing no more thy sorry strain
O green, green, green! They all came out of the green.
O serve me well, sarcophagus,
O Shark and threefold! Shark and fire
O sweetness, be my abacus, for I needs must count on you
O tell me, where is the welkin, wherein the whelk in play
O the dreamers are the sleepers, but the sleep is not the dream.
O Xella, I await your soft reprieve
Off like clockwork went my plan to manumit the slaves
Oh, had I Janus in my grip,
Oh, tell me, is the silent serpent gone
Oh, the gramophone is a marvellous beast, half bat, half snail, half prawn,
On a fine sunny day we went to the zoo
Paradigm of porters' skill,
Pass the varlet, goblet," cried the sergeant in a trance.
Pyrex is a periphrastic P.
Ripe and yet unsubtle were his weary ways.
Sad jesters were playing croquet then
See the polecat dance the polka
She isn't the type you could talk to all night
She leapt to her feet with a cry of dismay;
She never tells me yes or no.
She stoops without the need to conquer.
Sigismund, refurbished, assaulted his crew
Simple sisters in the sunlight
So as the sun sank slowly in the east, we cried aloud,
Softly blue and rippling slowly
Syphilitic Jews hide the ochre-hoped cranny,
Take that!" he cried, and kicked the hopeful frog
The afternoon was nearly over when the Old Pretender came
The Agricultural Revolution
The apple that the serpent gave,
The autumn mists were freezing mists.
The bicycle pump was not of the best
The burglars of Leamington Spa
The dangers inherent in eating a spoon
The drivers of cars who wear hats on their heads
The earth split asunder, the moon flew apart
The follies of the Argonauts are terrible to tell.
The girl awoke; she looked askance
The house had many windows
The humans wobbled horribly away
The keystone stood aloof beside the sea.
The maid of onomatopœia
The men of steel who conquered Jason's realm
The merchant of Venezuela
The monkey turned the greasy handle
The Oslo Chain-Gang went awry,
The ostrich, then, inveterate beast,
The phantom bantam mantra-man
The Plumber tuned his instrument:
The snow falls each morning at 6.35
The table was laid, the glasses were set.
The thongs of wheat that bound our sultry eyes
The thought of hope, the hope of thought!
The trees were old: their barks were scarred
The uncooked pie did wrily smile and say,
The wary ostrich lies abed,
The Welder was welding as never before:
The wild hedgehog raised the cry
There lies in far Brazil a wood
There was a young woman whose face
There was an old person of Bognor.
Though my mouth was full of water I resolved to have a try
To slay the whole cast our purpose must be.
What was the secret you told me last night?
When Galileo came to tea
Wring out the old, I say, but try no cause
Yet once more, O ye cabbages, and once more