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The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Since Elgin left his nostrils in the stone
His toga rumpled high above his knees
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
To break a rule Britannia's might might waive
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
Though bretzels take the dols from board-room drum
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


Raymond Queneau

Translation to English by Stanley Chapman
found in "Oulipo Compendium"
Atlas 1998, ISBN 0-947757-96-1

Idea and implementation by Magnus Bodin 1997
Produced in the wonderful country of Sweden.