Important people, poems by Louis Untermeyer.

Louis Untermeyer (1885 - 1977) was an American author, poet, anthologist, and editor. He was born in New York City and was the author or editor of close to 100 books. Many of these are preserved in a special section of the Lilly Library at the Indiana University. In 1956 the Poetry Society of America awarded Untermeyer a Gold Medal. He also served as a Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1961 until 1963. He once expressed his philosophy of life as: “From compromise and things half done, Keep me with stern and stubborn pride; And when at last the fight is won, God, keep me still unsatisfied.”

Important People

Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.

Edward Plantagenet
(Can you imagine it!)
Had owls in his hair,
And he didn't care.

The poet Byron
Was made of iron.
He bragged about it.
But I - I doubt it.

Andrew Jackson
Was Anglo-Saxon;
So, full of beans,
He took New Orleans.

Lord Alfred Tennyson
Lived upon venison -
Not cheap, I fear,
Because venison's deer.

The composer Liszt
Banged the piano with his fist.
That was the way
He liked to play!

Thomas A. Edison
Never took medicine;
So nobody wondered
That he lived to a hundred.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said "I'm having lunch with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing St. Paul's."

Although the Borgias
Were rather gorgeous,
They liked the absurder
Kinds of murder.

Francesca da Rimini
Lived in a chimney
Full of bats in the gloam -
But still, home is home!