A while ago I looked over an old poetry exercise book into...

A while ago I looked over an old poetry exercise book into which, as a seven-year old at school, I had been required to transcribe poems (presumably to combine an appreciation of culture and literature with writing practice). Nestling innocently amongst the Wordsworth and the like was the following gem, in messy 7-year-old's writing:

Old father Hubbard went to the cupboard,
To get himself a clean hanky,
When he got there,
The cupboard was bare,
and so was his wife, with a Yanky.

It was accompanied by the teacher's comment, which was merely: "!".
I wish I could remember what possessed me to write that in my schoolbook, or whether I had any idea what it was conveying.