Go hang yourself, you old M.D.! <br />You shall not sneer at me. <br />Pick up your hat and stethoscope, <br />Go wash your mouth with laundry soap; <br />I contemplate a joy exquisite <br />I'm not paying you for your visit. <br />I did not call you to be told <br />My malady is a common cold. <br /> <br />By pounding brow and swollen lip; <br />By fever's hot and scaly grip; <br />By those two red redundant eyes <br />That weep like woeful April skies; <br />By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff; <br />By handkerchief after handkerchief; <br />This cold you wave away as naught <br />Is the damnedest cold man ever caught! <br /> <br />Give ear, you scientific fossil! <br />Here is the genuine Cold Colossal; <br />The Cold of which researchers dream, <br />The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme. <br />This honored system humbly holds <br />The Super-cold to end all colds; <br />The Cold Crusading for Democracy; <br />The Führer of the Streptococcracy. <br /> <br />Bacilli swarm within my portals <br />Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals, <br />But bred by scientists wise and hoary <br />In some Olympic laboratory; <br />Bacteria as large as mice, <br />With feet of fire and heads of ice <br />Who never interrupt for slumber <br />Their stamping elephantine rumba. <br /> <br />A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth! <br />Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth; <br />Don Juan was a budding gallant, <br />And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent; <br />The Arctic winter is fairly coolish, <br />And your diagnosis is fairly foolish. <br />Oh what a derision history holds <br />For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!<br /><br />Ogden Nash<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/common-cold/
