Lines on a Big Ox

The Statememt doth me surprise, Sir,
Which I read in Advertiser;
Can it be true or but an hoax,
This tale of eighteen feet long ox?

It almost doth exceed belief,
This great living, mammoth beef;
I fear the measurement will fail,
Unless extended is its tail.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L8.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Lines on a Big Ox.” First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/lines-on-a-big-ox/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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