Instead of…
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!’
Maybe He would have wrote…
There was a Man with a very long beard, That grew not only long but ever so bushy Who said “It’s dreadful and just as I feared! –
My life is so annoying and not at all cushy Two Tawny Owls and a Speckled Red Hen, Nine Black Head Gulls and six little Sparrows
Four noisy Larks and a sweet little Wren, Eight Canadian Geese and two tiny Swallows And finallly a coinfident red chested robin
Have all come to stay and all built their nests In my beard causing my chin to be throbbin’ They are really nasty annoying pests So I will at last let my beard be shorn Will sleep much better when its quiet at dawn“
Which leads me to conclude…
There was an old man called Lear Whose limericks some people hold dear
In the form of a sonnet The extra lines on it Would make the rhyme sound somewhat queer