person writing sitting grass

The Poetry Project

Limerick

a humorous poem five lines long in which the first, second, and fifth lines have one rhyme and the third and fourth another.

'Humpty Dumpty' is not a limerick. Limericks all have five lines; 'Humpty Dumpty' has just four. Limericks have a specific rhyme scheme: AABBA. 'Humpty Dumpty's rhyme scheme is AABB.

Edward Lear

“There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said,
'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!' ”