Ogden Nash: “Common Cold”

Tania Sheko
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read
A common cold germ asking the father of a neurasthenia bacillus if he can marry her; he is refused on account of the social gap between them. Pen drawing by C. Harrison, 1913.

Go hang yourself, you old M.D,!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever’s hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne’er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare’s plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Poem of the day

selected by Blair Mahoney for his English classes. Images found by Tania Sheko, most selected from the curated collections of Stephen Ellcock on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stephen.ellcock and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephenellcock/.

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Tania Sheko

Written by

Put me in a box and I'll crawl out. Teaching person who ended up in a library. https://about.me/tsheko

Poem of the day

selected by Blair Mahoney for his English classes. Images found by Tania Sheko, most selected from the curated collections of Stephen Ellcock on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stephen.ellcock and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephenellcock/.

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