If I were a woodlouse

By Emma-Louise Nicholls, on 28 January 2014

If I were a woodlouse, I would stick to wood,

And I would only go, where I know a woodlouse should,

I wouldn’t stick my head, into a bird’s leg-bone,

I wouldn’t use just anything, in which to make a home,

‘Cause the problem you might find, once you’ve wriggled in,

Is that over time you grew larger, and the bone becomes too thin,

So even if you turn around, and head back whence you came,

You may find that,

You’ve grown too fat,

And have to die of shame.

Emma-Louise Nicholls is the Curatorial Assistant at the Grant Museum of Zoology

1

Daniel wrote on 29 January 2014:

With sincere apologies to that Shakespeare chap:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
The likeness is clear cut to any man:
For thou art damp and cool and strangely grey,
And all too common over summer’s span;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often must perforce a shelter find;
By dint of too much woodlouse brew betimes,
Shall take your shelter in a bird’s behind;
And now thy tibiotarsal home is made,
Shalt keep possession of that bone thou boast;
But shall Death now brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
Thy gill-like pleopods sit quiet therein,
So long – biphasic moulting’s wedged thee in!
2

Emma-Louise Nicholls wrote on 30 January 2014:

Excellent! Lots of clapping here 😀
3

Lorna Steel wrote on 3 February 2014:

No apology needed. I think Shakespeare would struggle to equal Daniel’s fabulous verse. Brilliant!

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