Short Funny Brother Poems for Cards, Birthdays, and Siblings

When my birthday was coming
Little Brother had a secret:
He kept it for days and days
And just hummed a little tune when I asked him.

But one night it rained
And I woke up and heard him crying:
Then he told me.

“I planted two lumps of sugar in your garden
Because you love it so frightfully
I thought there would be a whole sugar tree for your birthday,
And now it will all be melted.”

O the darling!

We sat in front of the fire;
Grandmother was in the rocking chair doing her knitting
And Little Brother and I were lying down flat.
“Please tell us a story, Grandmother,” we said.

But she put her head on one side and began counting the stitches,
“Suppose you tell me one instead.”

I made up one about a spotted tiger
That had a knot in his tail;
But though I liked this about the knot,
I did not know why it was put there.

So I said: “Little Brother’s turn.”

“I know a perfect story,” he cried, waving his hands.
Grandmother laid down her knitting.
“Do tell us, dear.”

“Once upon a time there was a bad little girl
And her Mummy gave her the slipper, and that’s all.”

It was not a very special story.
But we pretended to be very pleased
And Grandmother gave him jumps on her lap.

Shut these odious books up, brother;
They have made you quite another
Thing from what you used to be:
Once you liked to play with me,
Now you leave me all alone,
And are so conceited grown
With your Latin, you’ll scarce look
Upon any English book.

We had used on winter eves
To con over Shakespeare’s leaves,
Or on Milton’s harder sense
Exercise our diligence,
And you would explain with ease
The obscurer passages;
Find me out the prettiest places,
The poetic turns and graces,
Which, alas! now you are gone,
I must puzzle out alone;
And oft miss the meaning quite,
Wanting you to set me right.

All this comes since you’ve been under
Your new master. I much wonder
What great charm it is you see
In those words, musa, musæ;
Or in what do they excel
Our word song. It sounds as well
To my fancy as the other.
Now believe me, dearest brother,
I would give my finest frock
And my cabinet and stock
Of new playthings, every toy,
I would give them all with joy,
Could I you returning see
Back to English and to me.

Sister, fie for shame, no more!
Give this ignorant babble o’er,
Nor, with little female pride,
Things above your sense deride.
Why this foolish underrating
Of my first attempts at Latin?
Know you not each thing we prize
Does from small beginnings rise?

’Twas the same thing with your writing
Which you now take such delight in.
First you learnt the down-stroke line,
Then the hairstroke thin and fine,
Then a curve and then a better,
Till you came to form a letter;
Then a new task was begun,
How to join them two in one;
Till you got (these first steps pass’d)
To your fine text-hand at last.

So, though I at first commence
With the humble accidence,
And my study’s course affords
Little else as yet but words,
I shall venture in a while
At construction, grammar, style,
Learn my syntax, and proceed
Classic authors next to read,
Such as wiser, better, make us,
Sallust, Phædrus, Ovid, Flaccus:
All the poets with their wit,
All the grave historians writ,
Who the lives and actions show
Of men famous long ago;
Even their very sayings giving
In the tongue they used when living.

Think not I shall do that wrong
Either to my native tongue,
English authors to despise,
Or those books which you so prize;
Though from them awhile I stray,
By new studies call’d away,
Them when next I take in hand,
I shall better understand;
For I’ve heard wise men declare
Many words in English are
From the Latin tongue derived,
Of whose sense girls are deprived
’Cause they do not Latin know.

But if all your anger grow
From this cause, that you suspect,
By proceedings indirect,
I would keep (as miser’s pelf)
All this learning to myself;
Sister, to remove this doubt,
Rather than we will fall out,
(If our parents will agree)
You shall Latin learn with me.