Ogden Nash

Here you will find the Poem Common Cold of poet Ogden Nash

Common Cold

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!