Ogden Nash

The Japanese (1938)

How courteous is the Japanese;
He always says, “Excuse it, please.”
He climbs into his neighbor’s garden,
And smiles, and says, “I beg your pardon”;
He bows and grins a friendly grin,
And calls his hungry family in;
He grins, and bows a friendly bow;
“So sorry, this my garden now.”

 

 

 

 


Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was a frequent contributor of verse to journals such as Life and the New Yorker and the much-celebrated author of works such as Hard Lines (1931), The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse (1936), One Touch of Venus (with S. J. Perelman and Kurt Weill, 1942), Ogden Nash’s Musical Zoo (1947), You Can’t Get There from Here (1957), and many others. ‘The Japanese’ appeared in I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Boston: Little, Brown, 1938).

Several Nash titles remain in print. The most popular in the US are Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash: 650 Rhymes, Verses, Lyrics, and Poems, introduced my Archibald MacLeish (available here) and Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight (available here). The most popular in the UK are There’s Always Another Windmill (available here), Ogden Nash’s Food (here), and Candy is Dandy: The Best of Ogden Nash, with a foreword by Anthony Burgess (here).


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