TO A MAN WITH A BIG NOSE

Once there was a man stuck to a nose,
it was a nose more marvellous than weird,
it was a nearly living web of tubes,
it was a swordfish with an awful beard,

it was a sundial doomed to face the shade,
an elephant that looked up to the sky,
it was a nose of hangman and of scribe,
Ovidius Naso nostrilled all awry,

it was the bowsprit of a mighty ship,
like Egypt's pyramid it pierced the sky,
it was of noses all of the twelve tribes;

it was in noseness truly infinite,
an archnose shudder, and a frightening mask,
a monstrous chilblain, purpley and fried.