A cumulative what-if rhyme that stacks one impossible idea on another until it ends in an enormous splash. The building repetition makes it a joy to speed up as you go.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be!
And if all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be!
And if all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be!
And if all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be!
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a splish splash that would be!
About this rhyme
Order confirmed by text: sea, tree, axe, man, then the man fells the tree into the sea.
A cumulative rhyme that keeps piling on its own joke: one great sea, one great tree, one great axe, one great man, until the great man takes the great axe to the great tree and drops it into the great sea.
Say each line a little louder than the one before, and let the ending land as a splash.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition