Limericks have been around for hundreds of years. The limerick is a form of humorous verse.

You like limericks? Limericks have been around for hundreds of years. The limerick is a form of humorous verse. It has 5 lines, with a strong beat and rough anapestic rhythm (de-de-DUMM). The first 2 lines (each with 3 such feet) rhyme with the fifth. The 3rd and 4th lines (each with only 2 feet) also rhyme. The first line often begins: "There was a ..." and ends with the name of a person or place. The last line ends with an unusual or far-fetched rhyme. A type of joke written in strong rhythms and rhymed verse, limericks can become a classroom fad that will be of great value in developing word choice, sentence structure, fanciful invention, stylistics, and verse techniques. Limerick Day is celebrated on May 12th, the birthday of Edward Lear, who added a wonderful humor to the limericks and rhymes that he wrote.
The origin of this popular type of nonsense verse is unknown. Langford Reed, the limerick's only historian and principal anthologist, suggested that the name derives from a song brought back from France by returning members of the Irish brigade in the 18th century. The chorus of the song was "Will you come up to Limerick?" To this chorus impromptu verses were added, telling the adventures of persons from various Irish cities. The resulting verse takes its name from the Irish city of Limerick. The first English verse in something like limerick form is the jingle "Hickory, Dickory, Dock," first printed in 1744. A French epigram quoted by James Boswell in his Life of Johnson, dates from 1716. This form is again not identical, but this, and the existence of a French version of "Hickory, Dickory, Dock," offers some support to Reed's theory of a French origin.
The first collections of limericks in English date from about 1820. In the early 1830s Edward Lear composed limericks to amuse the children of his friend the earl of Derby and then published them in his Book of Nonsense (1846). He claimed to have gotten the idea from a nursery rhyme beginning "There was an old man of Tobago," which is quoted by Eugene Wrayburn in Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend.
Taken from the website: http://www.kieto.com/limericks.htm

Loony Limericks for Lackadaisical Louts

The fabulous Wizard of Oz
Retired from business becoz
What with up-to-date science,
To most of his clients,
He wasn't the Wizard he woz.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill can hold more than his belican.
He can take I his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

There was a young woman named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

A tutor who tooted a flute,
Tried to teach two tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor,
"Is it harder to toot, or
To tutor two tutors to toot?"

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
"Let us fly," said the flea,
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

There was an old man called Keith
Who mislaid his pair of false teeth -
Laid them on a chair,
Forgot they were there,
Sat down and was bitten underneath.

I went with the Duchess to tea,
Her manners were shocking to see;
Her rumblings abdominal
Were simply phenomenal,
And everyone thought it was me.