Anonymous Limerick (A Poem)

From Percy Russell’s “Premature Burial” to Seba Smith’s “The Life -Preserving Coffin,” the fear of premature burial which swept throughout Europe and the United States during the Victorian and Edwardian eras manifested itself in countless poems. Many, like the works of Russell and Smith (and even Thomas Hood’s “The Death-Bed”), addressed the concern with a sombre and highly sentimental tone; however, others - this anonymous limerick from 1908, for example - were far more farcical and irreverent in their approach.

 

There was a young man at Nunhead,

Who awoke in a coffin of lead;

“It is cosy enough,”

He remarked in a huff,

“But I wasn’t aware I was Dead.”[1]

 

Works Referenced

 

Anonymous. “Limerick.” Burial Reformer 1 (1908): 100.

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[1] Anonymous, 100.