Nonsense Verse

Edward Lear : the pioneer of English Nonsense verse

Nonsense verse is a form of light, often rhythmical verse, usually for children, depicting peculiar characters in amusing and fantastical situations. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and tends to employ fanciful phrases and meaningless made-up words. Limericks are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for bawdy or straightforwardly humorous, rather than nonsensical, effect. English language has full of them . 

See-saw, Margery Daw,
Dobbin shall have a new master.
He shall have but a penny a day
Because he can't go any faster.

It may be that there was once a real person called Margery Daw, and perhaps there was even a Dobbin who somehow came into the story. The typical scrap of folk poetry which one quotes almost unconsciously is not exactly nonsense but a sort of musical comment on some recurring event, such as "One a penny, two a penny, Hot-Cross buns", or "Polly, put the kettle on, we'll all have tea". Some of these seemingly frivolous rhymes actually express a deeply pessimistic view of life, the churchyard wisdom of the peasant.

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Shakespeare had written an entire comedies of errors thereby making nonsense verse an important part of English literature. When Shakespeare makes Edgar in King Lear quote "Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill", and similar fragments, he is uttering nonsense, but no doubt these fragments come from forgotten ballads in which they once had a meaning. For instance:

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
And that was the end of Solomon Grundy.

which is a gloomy story, but remarkably similar to yours or mine.