Lyric Poem · Nature

There Was an Old Man in a Tree

by Edward Lear

Reading room

1There was an Old Man in a tree,

2Who was horribly bored by a bee.

3When they said "Does it buzz?"

4He replied "Yes, it does!

5It's a regular brute of a bee!"

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“There Was an Old Man in a Tree” by Edward Lear — quilloak.com/poems/there-was-an-old-man-in-a-tree

Quick facts

Poem: There Was an Old Man in a Tree
Poet: Edward Lear
Length: 5 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes: Nature, Short

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 5 lines · one 5-line stanza
End rhyme: AABBA — limerick rhyme.
Line length: Lines run 6-9 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: Edward Lear1812–1888
Source record: PoetryDBThere Was an Old Man in a Tree by edward-lear, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 c37009d7463a0a02…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.