Limerick (poetry)

A limerick is a form of verse, often humorous and sometimes obscene, in five-line, predominantly anapestic[1]meter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.[2] The following example is a limerick of unknown origin:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical.But the good ones I've seenSo seldom are clean And the clean ones so seldom are comical.[3]

The form appeared in England in the early years of the 18th century.[4] It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century,[5] although he did not use the term. Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw,[6] describing the clean limerick as a "periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity". From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function. Lear is unusual in his creative use of the form, satirising without overt violation.

Highland Lake, New York

Highland Lake is a hamlet in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The community is 12.4 miles (20.0 km) southwest of Monticello. Highland Lake has a post office with ZIP code 12743, which opened on June 18, 1897.[2][3]

Cold Spring, New York

Cold Spring is a village in the town of Philipstown in Putnam County, New York, United States. The population was 1,983 at the 2010 census.[2] It borders the smaller village of Nelsonville and Garrison. The central area of the village is on the National Register of Historic Places as the Cold Spring Historic District due to its many well-preserved 19th-century buildings, constructed to accommodate workers at the nearby West Point Foundry (itself a Registered Historic Place today). The town is the birthplace of General Gouverneur K. Warren, who was an important figure in the Union Army during the Civil War. The village, located in the Hudson Highlands, sits at the deepest point of the Hudson River, directly across from West Point. Cold Spring serves as a weekend getaway for many residents of New York City.

Commuter service to New York City is available via the Cold Spring train station, served by Metro-North Railroad. The train journey is about an hour and ten minutes to Grand Central Terminal.

The site of present-day Cold Spring was part of the lands belonging to Adolphus Philipse. The first settler of Cold Spring was Thomas Davenport in 1730. In 1772 a highway master was chosen for the road from Cold Spring to the Post Road from New York to Albany. A small trading hamlet grew alongside the river by the early 1800s.[3] A couple of sloops made regular weekly trips from Cold Spring to New York, carrying wood and some country produce, which came over this model road from the east. Those trips by sloop usually took a week.

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

Hastings-on-Hudson is a village and inner suburb of New York City located in the southwest part of the town of Greenburgh in the state of New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, about 20 miles (32 km) north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line. To the north of Hastings-on-Hudson is the village of Dobbs Ferry, to the south the city of Yonkers, and to the east unincorporated parts of Greenburgh. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 7,849.[2] It lies on U.S. Route 9, "Broadway" in Hastings.

The area that is now Hastings-on-Hudson was once the home of the Weckquaesgeek Native Americans, one of the Algonquian tribes. In summer, the Weckquaesgeeks camped at the mouth of the ravine running under the present Warburton Avenue Bridge. There they fished, swam and collected oysters and clamshells used to make wampum. On the level plain nearby (which is now Maple Avenue), they planted corn and possibly tobacco.

Around 1650 a Dutch carpenter named Frederick Philipse arrived in New Amsterdam. In 1682 Philipse traded with the Native Americans for the area that is now Dobbs Ferry and Hastings. In 1693 the English crown granted Philipse the Manor of Philipsburg, which included what is now Hastings-on-Hudson. After dividing the area into four nearly equal-sized farms, the Philipses leased them to Dutch, English and French Huguenot settlers.

Maryland, New York

Maryland is a town in Otsego County, New York, United States. The population was 1,897 at the 2010 census. It was named for the U.S. state of the same name.[3] The Town of Maryland is on the county's south border. It is northeast of the City of Oneonta.

The town was first settled around 1790 in the southwest part of the town. Maryland was erected from the Town of Worcester in 1808. About 1909 until 1912 an extensive lumber operation by Emmons L. Peck of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, utilizing a steam tramway straddled the county line on South Hill east of Mud Lake, shipping finished lumber from Burnsides Switch on the D&HRR. Peck's personal cabin was later dismantled and rebuilt in the hamlet of Maryland next to the present post office. During World War I, Porter Brothers contracted to build the third rail for the D&HRR "bridge line" through Maryland and Worcester to allow larger eastbound freight trains without extra locomotives to clear Richmondville Hill by an alternate route, much of which was later obliterated by I-88 construction.[citation needed]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 51.9 square miles (134 km2), of which, 51.8 square miles (134 km2) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km2) of it (0.21%) is water. Interstate 88 and New York State Route 7 follows the east to west course of the Schenevus Creek. South Hill, an upland area, is partly in the southeast quadrant of the town. The south town line is the border of Delaware County.