And they, the young monopolists! absorbed the lion’s share.

Conundrums, riddles, rebuses, cross-questions, puns atrocious,

Taxed all their ingenuity, till Peter the precocious—

Old head on shoulders juvenile—cried, “Now for a new task:

Let’s try our hand at Palindromes!” “Agreed! But first,” we ask,

“Pray, Peter, what are Palindromes?” The forward imp replied,

“A Palindrome’s a string of words of sense or meaning void,

Which reads both ways the same: and here, with your permission,

I’ll cite some half a score of samples, lacking all precision

(But held together by loose rhymes, to test my definition):—