Wilhelm Busch, German poet and painter.
b. April 15, 1832, Wiedensahl, Hannover, Germany
d. Jan. 9, 1908, Mechshausen bei Seesen
He is best known for his drawings, which were allways accompanied by wise, satiric rhymes. Some people see him as the inventor (or at least the predecessor) of the comic strip.
His most famous work is Max und Moritz (Mac and Murray) which was translated to all European and some other languages. I have seen it in the Internet referred to as "130 year old Beavis and Butthead" and this really comes near to it. Max and Moritz are two rascals who play tricks on the adults and steal from them, but in the end they get punished for it. The book was not intended for children, but now every German knows it from his childhood.
It is almost impossible to post some of Buschs works here, because the pictures are as important as the poems. Here is one example:
The Finch and The Frog
The finch trills in the apple tree
His: Tiriliree!
A frog climbs slowly up to him,
Up to the treetop's leafy rim
And puffs right up and croaks: "Hallooo,
Ol' chum: see, I c'n do it too!"
And as the bird his song of spring
So sweetly to the world doth sing,
The frog chimes in with sassy tones
And interjects his bassy drones.
The finch exclaims: "O Joy, hurray!
I'll fly away!"
And springs into the azure sky.
"Hah!" cries the frog, "Well so kin I!"
He makes a most ungainly bound
And splats onto the bare hard ground.
He's pancake flat, and that's no joke:
He's croaked his very final croak.
If someone climbs laboriously
Into the branches of a tree
And thinks himself a bird to be:
Wrong is he.
Some examples of Busch Poetry in english including the pictures:
http://www.rivertext.com/busch.shtml (some poems)
http://www.vcu.edu/hasweb/for/menu.html (Max und Moritz, German and English)