The oldest extant piece of Provençal verse probably belongs to the 10th century.
King Henry's imagined reply at the battle of Agincourt was rendered into verse, probably by the poet-monk John Lydgate, around 1536: Some hard tennis balls I have hither brought Of marble and iron made full round.
Pound, on the other hand, admired De la Mare's "rather good little book of verse" (probably The Listeners) and invited him to contribute along with Eliot, Yeats, DH Lawrence, William Carlos Williams and other modernists, to the magazine Poetry Chicago, of which he was the driving force.
The second verse, probably added as part of these extensions has become a standard part of the nursery rhyme.
Madinger and Easter write that the lyrical content of this verse "probably shot down any chances of it being the hit single it could otherwise have been".
Even if the cowboys disappear entirely, their verses will probably stick around.
The song's verses will probably not rise from the pews of any church, but they may float from telephones when the federal Department of Education puts callers on hold.
Hannah's song of exultation (chapter 2, verses 1 10) probably became the basis of the form and content of the Magnificat, the song that Mary, the mother of Jesus, sang in Luke, chapter 1, verses 46 55, in the New Testament.
He may have been inspired by a Suzuki Harunobu print he almost certainly saw in the British Library (Richard Aldington mentions the specific prints he matched to verse), and probably attempted to write haiku-like verse during this period.
