Over decades, the word Nantucket has long been used in limericks because of its natural rhythm and inviting ease of rhyme. The first instance we found of Nantucket used in a limerick dates back to the 1800s. This famous series of limericks was discovered in a June 14, 1924 edition of a Nantucket newspaper.
It all began when the Princeton Tiger revived the then well-known limerick printed below and the Chicago Tribune answered with the second limerick. The New York Exchange went one step further with the third rhyme, and the Pawtucket Times took over from there.
Decades ago, Yesterday’s Island/Today’s Nantucket encouraged readers to continue the saga. You can read many of these—plus the special Pandemic Chapters— at YesterdaysIsland.com (just search for Limericks). This year, because of repeated requests, we again challenge our readers to write their own “chapters.”
Remember: limericks have five lines that follow a specific AABBA rhythm scheme in the examples below: the end of the “A” lines (lines one, two, and five) must rhyme with each other and the end of the “B” lines (lines three and four) must rhyme with one another. Email your limericks to us with your name, city, and state at nantucketnews@gmail.com; we will be pleased to share them with our readers in print and online.
There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
—Princeton Tiger
But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Chicago Tribune
Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nant and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
—Exchange
Of this story we hear from Nantucket,
About the mysterious loss of a bucket,
We are sorry for Nan,
As well as the man—
The cash and the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Pawtucket Times
And two new chapters…
There once was a Dan from Nantucket
Who scooped up an oyster and shucked it
The mollusk was old
Or so I am told
And as for his lunch well he chucked it
and
There once was a Dom from Nantucket
Who drank all his beer from a bucket
But upon being told
Became quite the scold
And exclaimed it’s a stein you muppet!
– CJ, New York