I need cheering up

And so do you, if like me earlier in the week, you have been hit with a cold (assuming you are a lady) or life-threatening Man Flu (if you are not)!  And no-one cheers you up quicker and better than Ogden Nash, and so I give you:

THE COMMON COLD by Ogden Nash

 

Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Comments

[Whyaxye]

"And no-one cheers you up quicker and better than Ogden Nash..."

It is indeed an excellent poem, but you have to confess that the DPP cheered us up more than any poet on the 3rd of this month.

[David Duff]

Quite so, 'W', nothing like bread and circuses - and a really juicy trial of a politician!

[Andra]

Life-threatening "man flu" indeed!

Haven't we had this conversation before?

Smarten up, Duff.

[JK]

Aw Andra, c'mon! I s'pose you ain't gonna simply take David's and my word that "Man-flu" is far worse than anything your gender could possibly imagine.

So then, what to do? How's 'bout we take a little look at what Science says:

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_19798889

[David Duff]

It's no good, JK, women simply have no understanding of the stoical courage with which we chaps face the immense suffering that is ManFlu.