A limerick-style rhyme about a man enjoying a smoke on a sunny day, until a bird called a snipe makes off with his pipe. Quick and silly, with the satisfying snap a limerick's rhyme always delivers.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
There was a fat man of Bombay,
Who was smoking one sunshiny day;
When a bird called a snipe
Flew away with his pipe,
Which vexed the fat man of Bombay.
About this rhyme
Snipe is a genuine wading bird. · Text matches: fat man of Bombay smoking, a snipe flies off with his pipe, which vexed him. · The five-line AABBA form is a limerick.
A limerick with a single mishap: a man enjoying a quiet smoke loses his pipe to a passing snipe, a real wading bird borrowed here purely for the rhyme with 'pipe.' The rhyme offers him no comfort, just leaves him vexed. Say 'vexed' with real feeling; it's doing all the comic work.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition