"There was a young girl from St. Paul" by Anonymous

"There Was a Young Girl From St. Paul"
There was a young girl from St. Paul, Wore a newspaper-dress to a ball.
   The dress caught on fire
   And burned her entire Front page, sporting section and all.

This short, "sing-songy" limerick resembles a nursery rhyme ("There once was a man from Nantucket...") and holds a charmingly didactic tone. This rhyme seems to hold a similar lesson to that of the infamous "Three Little Pigs". It's humorous and I imagine the speaker to be an adult perhaps gifting a lesson to his/her child. The poem holds an AABBA rhyme scheme which adds to it's nursery rhyme nature. The rhymes and language are extremely simple, easy for a child to comprehend. It is clever the author use newspaper to craft the dress because the newspaper is usually associated with an adult male. The poem consists an anapestic meter which creates its melodic beat.