Robert Conquest, R.I.P., was a great voice for truth and freedom in the twentieth century. He was also a serious poet and a master of the limerick.
To show that the last two coincide, here are two of his masterpieces.
There once was a Bolshie named Lenin
Who did two or three million men in.
That’s a lot to have done in,
But where he did one in,
A Bolshie named Stalin did ten in.
Seven ages: First, puking and mewling;
Then very p*ssed off with one’s schooling;
Then f**ks; then fights;
Then settling chaps’ rights;
Then sitting in slippers; then drooling.