Chapter XXII: Part II (1)

She sat with her hands ’neath her dimpled cheeks,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she didn’t even sneeze.

She sat, with her hands ’neath her crimson cheeks;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She gave up mending her father’s breeks,
And let the cat roll in her new chemise.

She sat with her hands ’neath her burning cheeks,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she follow’d him o’er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And this song is consider’d a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it’s what you please.

Equally marvelous in its assured touch and utter lack of mere burlesque exaggeration is his parody of Browning.

_THE COCK AND THE BULL_

You see this pebble-stone? It’s a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day.
I like to dock the smaller parts o’ speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail’d cur--
(You catch the paronomasia, play ’po’ words?)
Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same
By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange--
“Chop” was my snickering dandiprat’s own term--
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm.
O-n-e one, and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence--you are with me, sir?--
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see--bar a spit o’ rain!)
In February, eighteen, sixty-nine,
Alexandria Victoria, Fidei--
Hm--hm--how runs the jargon? being on the throne.
Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum--what you will--
Of the impending eighty thousand lines.
“Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge.
But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.
That shilling--and for matter o’ that, the pence--
I had o’ course upo’ me--wi’ me say--
(_Mecum’s_ the Latin, make a note o’ that)
When I popp’d pen i’ stand, scratch’d ear, wiped snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff’d--tch!--at snuff-box; tumbled up, teheed,
Haw-haw’d (not hee-haw’d, that’s another guess thing),
Then fumbled at and stumbled out of, door.
I shoved the timber ope wi’ my omoplat;
And _in vestibulo_, i’ the lobby to wit
(Iacobi Facciolati’s rendering, sir),
Donn’d galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o’ rain,
I flopp’d forth, ’sbuddikins! on my own ten toes
(I do assure you there be ten of them),
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy.
But case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ bought
This sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble thing, o’ the boy-thing? Q. E. D.
That’s proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek proporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You’re in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling--having i’ fact a lot--
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (_lapis, lapidis,-di,-dem,-de--_
What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun,
For one and fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) _vice versa_ all the coin,
_Per juris operationem_, vests
I’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom;
(_In sæcula sæculo-o-o-rum_;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them.
_Confer_ some idiot on Conveyancing.

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,
And all that appertaineth thereunto,
_Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem_
(I fancy, sir, my Latin’s rather pat),
Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should
(_Subaudi cætera_--clap we to the close--
For what’s the good of Law in a case o’ the kind),
Is mine to all intents and purposes.
This settled, I resume the thread o’ the tale.

Now for a touch o’ the vendor’s quality.
He says a gen’lman bought a pebble of him
(This pebble i’ sooth, sir, which I hold i’ my hand),
And paid for’t, _like_ a gen’lman, on the nail.
“Did I o’ercharge him a ha’penny? Devil a bit.
Fiddlepin’s end! Get out, you blazing ass!
Gabble o’ the goose. Don’t bugaboo-baby _me_!
Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what’s the odds?”
There’s the transaction view’d i’ the vendor’s light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,
With her three frowsy blowsy brats o’ babes,
The scum o’ the kennel, cream o’ the filth-heap--Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! οτοτοτοτοτοι
(’Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now),
And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Jill,
Blear’d Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it _rite_, on the square,
And carry it off _per saltum_, jauntily,
_Propria quae maribus_, gentleman’s property now
(Agreeably to the law explain’d above),
_In proprium usum_, for his private ends,
The boy he chuck’d a brown i’ the air, and bit
I’ the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by
(And hit her, dead as nail i’ post o’ door),
Then _abiit_--what’s the Ciceronian phrase?--
_Excessit_, _evasit_, _erupit_--off slogs boy;
Off like bird, _avi similis_--you observed
The dative? Pretty i’ the Mantuan!)--_Anglice_
Off in three flea skips. _Hactenus_, so far,
So good, _tam bene_. _Bene_, _satis_, _male_,--
Where was I with my trope ’bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
_Verbum personale_, a verb personal,
_Concordat_--ay, “agrees,” old Fatchaps--_cum_
_Nominativo_, with its nominative,
_Genere_, i’ point o’ gender, _numero_,
O’ number, _et persona_, and person. _Ut_,
Instance: _Sol ruit_, down flops sun, _et_, and,
_Montes umbrantur_, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I’m going mad.
You see the trick on ’t though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse _ad libitum_.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at;
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

While the style of Jean Ingelow is thus genially made fun of.

_LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION_

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Through God’s own heather we wonned together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was glorious weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:--

By rises that flushed with their purple favors,
Through becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,
We walked or waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In “fortunate parallels!” Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock’s eyes:

Song-birds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky--
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes,
Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;
They need no parasols, no galoshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst his heather)
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt--(it was perfectly charming weather)--
Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:

And Willie ’gan sing--(O, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)--
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry”:

Bowers of flowers encountered showers
In William’s carol (O love my Willie!)
When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe To-morrow
I quite forget what--say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden--
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got “furled”;
Not with any design to conceal their glories,
But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”

* * * * *

O, if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together this genial weather,
And carted, or carried on wafts away,
Nor ever again trotted out--ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be!

_ODE TO TOBACCO_

Thou who, when fears attack,
Bid’st them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman’s back
Perching, unseatest;
Sweet when the morn is gray;
Sweet, when they’ve cleared away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:

I have a liking old
For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told,
Not to thy credit;
How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost--
Useless, except to roast--
Doctors have said it:

How they who use fusees
All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;
Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving-knives
Into their gizzards.

Confound such knavish tricks!
Yet know I five or six
Smokers who freely mix
Still with their neighbors;
Jones--(who, I’m glad to say,
Asked leave of Mrs. J.)--
Daily absorbs a clay
After his labors.

Cats may have had their goose
Cooked by tobacco-juice;
Still why deny its use
Thoughtfully taken?
We’re not as tabbies are:
Smith, take a fresh cigar!
Jones, the tobacco-jar!
Here’s to thee, Bacon!

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is better known as Lewis Carroll, though during his lifetime, the author of _Alice_ was extremely careful to preserve a decided distinction between the College Don and the writer of nonsense.

Lewis Carroll was the first to produce coherent humor in the form of sheer nonsense, and his work, often imitated, has never been equaled.

Beside the _Alice_ books he wrote several volumes only a degree less wise and witty in the nonsense vein.

But few selections can be given.

_JABBERWOCKY_

(From _Through the Looking-Glass_)

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

_WAYS AND MEANS_

I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
“Who are you, aged man?” I said,
“And how is it you live?”
His answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said, “I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,” he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread--
A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale;
He said, “I go my ways
And when I find a mountain-rill
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil--
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue;
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”

He said, “I hunt for haddock’s eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny
And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“By which I get my wealth--
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honor’s noble health.”

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know--
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly, and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo--
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.

_SOME HALLUCINATIONS_

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
“At length I realize,” he said,
“The bitterness of Life!”

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
“Unless you leave this house,” he said,
“I’ll send for the Police!”

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak!”

He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the ’bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
“If this should stay to dine,” he said,
“There won’t be much for us!”

Edward Lear, contemporary of Lewis Carroll, is the only peer of the great writer of nonsense.

Lear’s nonsense is in different vein, but his verses are equally facile and felicitous and his prose quite as delightfully extravagant.

If Carroll’s imagination was more exquisitely fanciful, Lear’s had a broader scope, and both writers are masters of that peculiar combination of paradox and reasoning that makes for delightful surprise.

Lear was the first to make popular the style of stanza since called a Limerick, though the derivation of this name has never been satisfactorily determined.

There was an old man of Thermopylæ,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said: “If you choose
To boil eggs in your shoes,
You cannot remain in Thermopylæ.”

There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!
I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
When they said, “Is it small?”
He replied, “Not at all;
It is four times as big as the bush!”

There was an Old Man who supposed
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large Rats
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile Old Gentleman dozed.

There was an Old Man of Leghorn,
The smallest that ever was born;
But quickly snapt up he
Was once by a Puppy,
Who devoured that Old Man of Leghorn.

There was an Old Man of Kamschatka
Who possessed a remarkably fat Cur;
His gait and his waddle
Were held as a model
To all the fat dogs in Kamschatka.

_THE TWO OLD BACHELORS_

Two old Bachelors were living in one house
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,
“This happens just in time, for we’ve nothing in the house,
Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey,
And what to do for dinner,--since we haven’t any money?
And what can we expect if we haven’t any dinner
But to lose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?”

Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,
“We might cook this little Mouse if we only had some Stuffin’!
If we had but Sage and Onions we could do extremely well,
But how to get that Stuffin’ it is difficult to tell!”

And then these two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops or in the Market or in all the Gardens round.

But some one said, “A hill there is, a little to the north,
And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;
And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,--
An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
Climb up and seize him by the toes,--all studious as he sits,--
And pull him down, and chop him into endless little bits!
Then mix him with your Onion (cut up likewise into scraps),
And your Stuffin’ will be ready, and very good--perhaps.”

And then these two old Bachelors, without loss of time,
The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage a-reading of a most enormous book.
“You earnest Sage!” aloud they cried, “your book you’ve read enough
in!
We wish to chop you into bits and mix you into Stuffin’!”

But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book
At those two Bachelors’ bald heads a certain aim he took;
And over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,--
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town;
And when they reached their house, they found (besides their want
of Stuffin’)
The Mouse had fled--and previously had eaten up the Muffin.

They left their home in silence by the once convivial door;
And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.

Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose marvelous mastery of the lyric is well known, is not so noted as a humorist.

Yet his parodies are among the finest in the language. His day was the Golden Age of Parody, and the writers who achieved it were true poets and true wits.

This parody of Tennyson is alike a perfect mimicry of sound and sense.

_THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL_

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is;
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without
thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Swinburne’s parody of his own work is beautifully done in

_NEPHELIDIA_

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable
nimbus of nebulous moonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with
fear of the flies as they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of
mystic miraculous moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and
threaten with throbs through the throat?
Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s
appalled agitation,
Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the
promise of pride in the past;
Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with
radiance of rathe recreation,
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom
of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on
the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who
is dumb as the dust-heaps of death;
Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional
exquisite error,
Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by
beatitude’s breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and
soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the
semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular
tenses,--
“Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the
dawn of the day when we die.”
Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute
as it may be,
While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of
men’s rapiers, resigned to the rod;
Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the
bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies
growing green at a groan for the grimness of God.
Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is
blacker than bluer:
Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews
are the wine of the bloodshed of things:
Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is
freed from the fangs that pursue her,
Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the
hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.

Henry Austin Dobson, better known without his first name, was a skillful writer of beautiful _vers de société_.

He also wrote much in the French Forms and seemed to find them in no way trammeling.

_ON A FAN_

THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR

(Ballade)

Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty _frou-frou_
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

See how they rise at the sight,
Thronging the _Œil de Bœuf_ through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
_Talon-rouge_, falaba, queue,
Cardinal, duke,--to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, _voyez-vous_
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, maybe, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;--
Here was the sign and the cue,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

Envoy

Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
--But where is the Pompadour, too?
_This_ was the Pompadour’s _fan_!

_THE ROUNDEAU_

You bid me try, Blue-eyes, to write
A Rondeau. What! forthwith?--tonight?
Reflect? Some skill I have, ’tis true;
But thirteen lines!--and rhymed on two!--
“Refrain,” as well. Ah, hapless plight!
Still there are five lines--ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you--
You bid me try!

That makes them eight.--The port’s in sight;
’Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in “oo,”--
When maids command, what can’t we do?
Behold! The Rondeau--tasteful, light--
You bid me try!

Andrew Lang was perhaps the most versatile writer among English bookmen of his day. Verse or prose, religious research or translations, to each and all he gives his individual touch,--light, airy, humorous.

Fairies, Dreams and Ghosts are all his happy hunting ground, and he was one of the first to experiment with the old French Forms, in which he gave his own delightful fancy free play, while adhering strictly to the inflexible rules.

_BALLAD OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST_

I am an ancient Jest!
Paleolithic man
In his arboreal nest
The sparks of fun would fan;
My outline did he plan,
And laughed like one possessed,
’Twas thus my course began,
I am a Merry Jest.

I am an early Jest!
Man delved and built and span;
Then wandered South and West
The peoples Aryan,
_I_ journeyed in their van;
The Semites, too, confessed,--
From Beersheba to Dan,--
I am a Merry Jest.

I am an ancient Jest,
Through all the human clan,
Red, black, white, free, oppressed,
Hilarious I ran!
I’m found in Lucian,
In Poggio, and the rest,
I’m dear to Moll and Nan!
I am a Merry Jest!

Prince, you may storm and ban--
Joe Millers _are_ a pest,
Suppress me if you can!
I am a Merry Jest!

_BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME_

Oh, where are the endless Romances
Our grandmothers used to adore?
The knights with their helms and their lances,
Their shields and the favours they wore?
And the monks with their magical lore?
They have passed to Oblivion and _Nox_,
They have fled to the shadowy shore,--
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And where the poetical fancies
Our fathers rejoiced in, of yore?
The lyric’s melodious expanses,
The epics in cantos a score,
They have been and are not: no more
Shall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,
Nor the ladies their languors deplore,--
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And the music! The songs and the dances?
The tunes that time may not restore?
And the tomes where Divinity prances?
And the pamphlets where heretics roar?
They have ceased to be even a bore,--
The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,--
They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core,
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

Envoy

Suns beat on them; tempests downpour,
On the chest without cover or locks,
Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door,--
They are _all_ in the Fourpenny Box!

William Schwenck Gilbert began as a youth his humorous contributions to magazines, which included the immortal _Bab Ballads_.

Ten years later he joined forces with the composer, Arthur Sullivan, and the result of this collaboration was the well known series of operas of which _Trial By Jury_ was the first.

Gilbert is second to none in humorous paradoxical thought and sprightly and clever versification. His themes, subtle and fantastic, are worked out with a serious absurdity as truly witty as it is charming.

_THE MIGHTY MUST_

Come mighty Must!
Inevitable Shall!
In thee I trust.
Time weaves my coronal!
Go mocking Is!
Go disappointing Was!
That I am this
Ye are the cursed cause!
Yet humble second shall be first,
I ween;
And dead and buried be the curst
Has Been!

Of weak Might Be!
Oh, May, Might, Could, Would, Should!
How powerless ye
For evil or for good!
In every sense
Your moods I cheerless call,
Whate’er your tense
Ye are imperfect, all!
Ye have deceived the trust I’ve shown
In ye!
Away! The Mighty Must alone
Shall be!

_TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE_

By a Miserable Wretch.

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
Roll on!
What though I’m in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache’s ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air,
Roll on!
It’s true I have no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue--
But don’t let that unsettle you:
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!
(_It rolls on_).

_GENTLE ALICE BROWN_

It was a robber’s daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
But it isn’t of her parents that I’m going for to sing.

As Alice was a-sitting at her window-sill one day
A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, “I could be happy with a gentleman like you!”

And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen;
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten,
A sorter in the Custom House it was his daily road
(The Custom House was fifteen minutes’ walk from her abode).

But Alice was a pious girl and knew it was not wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes,
So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed--
The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.

“Oh holy father,” Alice said, “’twould grieve you, would it not?
To discover that I was a most disreputable lot!
Of all unhappy sinners I’m the most unhappy one!”
The padre said “Whatever have you been and gone and done?”

“I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
I’ve assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad.
I’ve planned a little burglary and forged a little cheque,
And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!”

The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear--
And said “You mustn’t judge yourself too heavily, my dear--
It’s wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;
But sins like these one expiates at half-a-crown apiece.

“Girls will be girls--you’re very young and flighty in your mind;
Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:
We mustn’t be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
Let’s see--five crimes at half a crown--exactly twelve-and six.”

“Oh father,” little Alice cried, “your kindness makes me weep,
You do these little things for me so singularly cheap--
Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
But, oh, there is another crime I haven’t mentioned yet!

“A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,--
I’ve noticed at my window, as I’ve sat a-catching flies;
He passes by it every day as certain as can be--
I blush to say I’ve winked at him, and he has winked at me!”

“For shame,” said Father Paul, “my erring daughter! On my word
This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!

“This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so!
They are the most remunerative customers I know;
For many, many years they’ve kept starvation from my doors,
I never knew so criminal a family as yours!

“The common country folk in this insipid neighbourhood
Have nothing to confess, they’re so ridiculously good;
And if you marry anyone respectable at all,
Why, you’ll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?”

The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown;
To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,
Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.

Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well,
He said, “I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.

“I’ve studied human nature, and I know a thing or two;
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do,
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small.”

He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
He watched his opportunity and seized him unaware;
He took a life preserver and he hit him on the head,
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.

And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,
Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.

Francis C. Burnand, writer of many comedies and burlesques, was a long time editor of _Punch_ and wrote much of his best work for that paper.

One of his most delightful songs, so successfully sung by the Vokes family is:

_TRUE TO POLL_

I’ll sing you a song, not very long,
But the story somewhat new
Of William Kidd, who, whatever he did,
To his Poll was always true.
He sailed away in a galliant ship
From the port of old Bris_tol_,
And the last words he uttered,
As his hankercher he fluttered,
Were, “My heart is true to Poll.”

His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do
If your heart be only true:
And his heart _was_ true to Poll.

’Twas a wreck. Willi_am_, on shore he swam,
And looked about for an inn;
When a noble savage lady, of a colour rather shady,
Came up with a kind of grin:
“Oh, marry _me_, and a king you’ll be,
And in a palace loll;
Or we’ll eat you willy-nilly.”
So he gave his _hand_, did Billy,
But his _heart_ was true to Poll.

Away a twelvemonth sped, and a happy life he led
As the King of the Kikeryboos;
His paint was red and yellar, and he used a big umbrella,
And he wore a pair of over-_shoes_!
He’d corals and knives, and twenty-six wives,
Whose beauties I cannot here extol;
One day they all revolted,
So he back to Bristol bolted,
For his _heart_ was true to Poll.

His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do,
If your heart be only true:
And his _heart_ was true to Poll.

William Ernest Henley, though better known for his serious work, waxed humorous, especially when making excursions into the artificial verse forms.

_VILLANELLE_

Now ain’t they utterly too-too
(She ses, my Missus mine, ses she)
Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Joe, just you kool ’em--nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?

They’re better than a pot’n’ a screw,
They’re equal to a Sunday spree,
Them flymy little bits of Blue!

Suppose I put ’em up the flue,
And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?

I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.
Joe, I’m consummate; and I _see_
Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Which, Joe, is why I ses to you--
Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free--
Now _ain’t_ they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits of Blue?

Robert Louis Stevenson’s humor consists in an extravagance and whimsicality of thought and expression and is usually subservient to a greater intent.

His delightful _Child’s Verses_ show quiet roguery and humorous conceits.

The lovely cow, all red and white,
I love with all my heart;
She gives me milk with all her might
To eat on apple tart.

The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

This original style of Juvenile verse, often imitated, has rarely been successful in the hands of lesser artists.

James Matthew Barrie, one of the finest English humorists, may not be quoted successfully because his work is only found in sustained stories or plays, and few brief extracts will bear separation from their contexts.

A short passage from _A Window in Thrums_ will hint at the delightfulness of Barrie’s humor.

_A HUMOURIST ON HIS CALLING_

Tammas put his foot on the pail.

“I tak no credit,” he said modestly, on the evening, I remember, of Willie Pyatt’s funeral, “in bein’ able to speak wi’ a sort o’ faceelity on topics ’at I’ve made my ain.”

“Aye,” said T’nowhead, “but it’s no faceelity o’ speakin’ ’at taks me. There’s Davit Lunan ’at can speak like as if he had learned if aff a paper, an’ yet I canna thole ’im.”

“Davit,” said Hendry, “doesna speak in a wy ’at a body can follow ’im. He doesna gae even on. Jess says he’s juist like a man aye at the cross-roads, an’ no sure o’ his way. But the stock has words, an’ no ilka body has that.”

“If I was bidden to put Tammas’s gift in a word,” said T’nowhead, “I would say ’at he had a wy. That’s what I would say.”

“Weel, I suppose I have,” Tammas admitted, “but, wy or no wy, I couldna put a point on my words if it wasna for my sense o’ humour. Lads, humour’s what gies the nip to speakin’.”

“It’s what maks ye a sarcesticist, Tammas,” said Hendry; “but what I wonder at is yer sayin’ the humorous things sae aisy-like. Some says ye mak them up aforehand, but I ken that’s no true.”

“No, only is’t no true,” said Tammas, “but it couldna be true. Them ’at says sic things, an’ weel I ken you’re meanin’ Davit Lunan, hasna nae idea o’ what humour is. It’s a thing ’at spouts oot o’ its ain accord. Some o’ the maist humorous things I’ve ever said cam oot, as a body may say, by themselves.”

“I suppose that’s the case,” said T’nowhead; “an’ yet it maun be you ’at brings them up?”

“There’s no nae doubt about its bein’ the case,” said Tammas; “for I’ve watched mysel’ often. There was a vera guid instance occurred sune after I married Easie. The earl’s son met me one day, aboot that time, i’ the Tenements, an’ he didna ken ’at Chirsty was deid, an’ I’d married again. ‘Well, Haggart,’ he says, in his frank wy, ‘and how is your wife?’ ‘She’s vera weel, sir,’ I maks answer, ‘but she’s no the ane you mean.’”

“Na, he meant Chirsty,” said Hendry.

“Is that a’ the story?” asked T’nowhead

Tammas had been looking at us queerly.

“There’s no nane o’ ye lauchin’,” he said, “but I can assure ye the earl’s son gaed east the toon lauchin’ like onything.”

“But what was’t he lauched at?”

“Ou,” said Tammas, “a humourist doesna tell whaur the humour comes in.”

“No, but when you said that, did ye mean it to be humourous?”

“Am no sayin’ I did, but as I’ve been tellin’ ye humour spouts oot by itsel’.”

“Aye, but do ye ken noo what the earl’s son gaed awa lauchin’ at?”

Tammas hesitated.

“I dinna exactly see’t,” he confessed, “but that’s no an oncommon thing. A humourist would often no ken ’at he was are if it wasna by the wy he maks other fowk lauch. A body canna be expeckit baith to mak the joke an’ to see’t. Na, that would be doin’ twa fowks’ wark.”

“Weel, that’s reasonable enough, but I’ve often seen ye lauchin’,” said Hendry, “lang afore other fowk lauched.”

“Nae doubt,” Tammas explained, “an’ that’s because humour has twa sides, juist like a penny piece. When I say a humorous thing mysel’ I’m dependent on other fowk to tak note o’ the humour o’t, bein’ mysel’ taen up wi’ the makkin’ o’t. Aye, but there’s things I see an’ hear at’ maks me laucht, an’ that’s the other side o’ humour.”

“I never heard it put sae plain afore,” said T’nowhead, “an’, sal, am no nane sure but what am a humourist too.”

“Na, na, no you, T’nowhead,” said Tammas hotly.

* * * * *

Sir Owen Seaman, present editor of _Punch_, is also one of the finest parodists of all time. His humorous verse of all varieties is in the first rank.

_A NOCTURNE AT DANIELI’S_

(Suggested by Browning’s _A Toccata of Galuppi’s_.)

_Caro mio, Pulcinello_, kindly hear my wail of woe
Lifted from a noble structure--late Palazzo Dandolo.

This is Venice, you will gather, which is full of precious “stones,”
Tintorettos, picture-postcards, and remains of Doges’ bones.

Not of these am I complaining; they are mostly seen by day,
And they only try your patience in an inoffensive way.

But at night, when over Lido rises Dian (that’s the moon),
And the vicious _vaporetti_ cease to vex the still lagoon;

When the final _trovatore_, singing something old and cheap,
Hurls his _tremolo crescendo_ full against my beauty sleep;

When I hear the Riva’s loungers in debate beneath my bower
Summing up (about 1.30) certain questions of the hour;

Then across my nervous system falls the shrill mosquito’s boom,
And it’s “O, to be in England,” where the may is on the bloom.

I admit the power of Music to inflate the savage breast--
There are songs devoid of language which are quite among the best;

But the present orchestration, with its poignant oboe part,
Is, in my obscure opinion, barely fit to rank as Art.

Will it solace me to-morrow, being hit in either eye,
To be told that this is nothing to the season in July?

Shall I go for help to Ruskin? Would it ease my pimply brow
If I found the doges suffered much as I am suffering now?

If identical probosces pinked the lovers who were bored
By the sentimental tinkling of Galuppi’s clavichord?

That’s from Browning (Robert Browning)--I have left his works at
home,
And the poem I allude to isn’t in the Tauchnitz tome;

But, if memory serves me rightly, he was very much concerned
At the thought that in the sequel Venice reaped what Venice earned.

Was he thinking of mosquitoes? Did he mean _their_ poisoned crop?
Was it through ammonia tincture that “the kissing had to stop”?

As for later loves--for Venice never quite mislaid her spell--
Madame Sand and dear De Musset occupied my own hotel!

On the very floor below me, I have heard the patron say,
They were put in No. 13 (No. 36, to-day).

But they parted--“_elle et lui_” did--and it now occurs to me
That mosquitoes came between them in this “kingdom by the sea.”

Poor dead lovers, and such brains, too! What am I that I should
swear
When the creatures munch my forehead, taking more than I can spare?

Should I live to meet the morning, should the climate readjust
Any reparable fragments left upon my outer crust,

Why, at least I still am extant, and a dog that sees the sun
Has the pull of Danieli’s den of “lions,” dead and done.

Courage! I will keep my vigil on the balcony till day
Like a knight in full pyjamas who would rather run away.

Courage! let me ope the casement, let the shutters be withdrawn;
Let scirocco, breathing on me, check a tendency to yawn;
There’s the sea! and--_Ecco l’alba!_ Ha! (in other words) the Dawn!

_TO JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY_

(A form of betrothal gift in America is an anklet secured by a padlock, of which the other party keeps the key.)

When like a bud my Julia blows
In lattice-work of silken hose,
Pleasant I deem it is to note
How, ’neath the nimble petticoat,
Above her fairy shoe is set
The circumvolving zonulet.
And soothly for the lover’s ear
A perfect bliss it is to hear
About her limb so lithe and lank
My Julia’s ankle-bangle clank.
Not rudely tight, for ’twere a sin
To corrugate her dainty skin;
Nor yet so large that it might fare
Over her foot at unaware;
But fashioned nicely with a view
To let her airy stocking through:
So as, when Julia goes to bed,
Of all her gear disburdenèd,
This ring at least she shall not doff
Because she cannot take it off.
And since thereof I hold the key,
She may not taste of liberty,
Not though she suffer from the gout,
Unless I choose to let her out.

_AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK_

(FRENCH STYLE, 1898)

(_Being an Ode in further “Contribution to the Song of French
History,” dedicated, without malice or permission, to Mr. George
Meredith_)

I

Rooster her sign,
Rooster her pugnant note, she struts
Evocative, amazon spurs aprick at heel;
Nid-nod the authentic stump
Of the once ensanguined comb vermeil as wine;
With conspuent doodle-doo
Hails breach o’ the hectic dawn of yon New Year,
Last issue up to date
Of quiverful Fate
Evolved spontaneous; hails with tonant trump
The spiriting prime o’ the clashed carillon-peal;
Ruffling her caudal plumes derisive of scuts;
Inconscient how she stalks an immarcessibly absurd
Bird.

II

Mark where her Equatorial Pioneer
Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise.
His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the dregs
The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-head-piece gift
Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover’s smirch.
Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift
On dubiously connivent legs,
The facile prey of predatory flies;
Panting for further; sworn to lurch
Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened blue,
Rhyming--see Cantique I.--with doodle-doo.

III

Infuriate she kicked against Imperial fact;
Vulnant she felt
What pin-stab should have stained Another’s pelt
Puncture her own Colonial lung-balloon,
Volant to nigh meridian. Whence rebuffed,
The perjured Scythian she lacked
At need’s pinch, sick with spleen of the rudely cuffed
Below her breath she cursed; she cursed the hour
When on her spring for him the young Tyrannical broke
Amid the unhallowed wedlock’s vodka-shower,
She passionate, he dispassionate; tricked
Her wits to eye-blind; borrowed the ready as for dower;
Till from the trance of that Hymettus-moon
She woke,
A nuptial-knotted derelict;
Pensioned with Rescripts other aid declined
By the plumped leech saturate urging Peace
In guise of heavy-armed Gospeller to men,
Tyrannical unto fraternal equal liberal, her. Not she;
Not till Alsace her consanguineous find
What red deteutonising artillery
Shall shatter her beer-reek alien police
The just-now pluripollent; not till then.

IV

More pungent yet the esoteric pain
Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud
Insanely grumous, grumously insane.
For lo!
Past common balmly on the Bordereau,
Churns she the skim o’ the gutter’s crust
With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole,
Whooped praise of the Anti-just;
Her boulevard brood
Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad;
Theatrical of faith in the Belliform,
Her Og,
Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had
To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog
For the Preconcerted One,
The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole;
Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither volant swarm.
Bides she his coming; adumbrates the new
Expurgatorial Divine,
Her final effulgent Avatar,
Postured outside a trampling mastodon
Black as her Baker’s charger; towering; visibly gorged
With blood of traitors. Knee-grip stiff,
Spine straightened, on he rides;
Embossed the Patriot’s brow with hieroglyph
Of martial _dossiers_, nothing forged
About him save his armour. So she bides
Voicing his advent indeterminably far,
Rooster her sign,
Rooster her conspuent doodle-doo.

V

Behold her, pranked with spurs for bloody sport,
How she acclaims,
A crapulous chanticleer,
Breach of the hectic dawn of yon New Year.
Not yet her fill of rumours sucked;
Inebriate of honour; blushfully wroth;
Tireless to play her old primeval games;
Her plumage preened the yet unplucked
Like sails of a galleon, rudder hard amort
With crepitant mast
Fronting the hazard to dare of a dual blast
The intern and the extern, blizzards both.

Anthony C. Deane is also among the best of the modern parodists.

_HERE IS THE TALE_

(AFTER RUDYARD KIPLING)

_Here is the tale--and you must make the most of it:
Here is the rhyme--ah, listen and attend:
Backwards--forwards--read it all and boast of it
If you are anything the wiser at the end!_

Now Jack looked up--it was time to sup, and the bucket was yet to
fill,
And Jack looked round for a space and frowned, then beckoned his
sister Jill,
And twice he pulled his sister’s hair, and thrice he smote her
side;
“Ha’ done, ha’ done with your impudent fun--ha’ done with your
games!” she cried;
“You have made mud-pies of a marvellous size--finger and face are
black,
You have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay--now up and wash you,
Jack!
Or else, or ever we reach our home, there waiteth an angry dame--
Well you know the weight of her blow--the supperless open shame!
Wash, if you will, on yonder hill--wash, if you will, at the
spring,--
Or keep your dirt, to your certain hurt, and an imminent
walloping!”

“You must wash--you must scrub--you must scrape!” growled Jack,
“you must traffic with cans and pails,
Nor keep the spoil of the good brown soil in the rim of your
finger-nails!
The morning path you must tread to your bath--you must wash ere the
night descends,
And all for the cause of conventional laws and the soapmakers’
dividends!
But if ’tis sooth that our meal in truth depends on our washing,
Jill,
By the sacred right of our appetite--haste--haste to the top of the
hill!”

They have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay, they have toiled
and travelled far,
They have climbed to the brow of the hill-top now, where the
bubbling fountains are,
They have taken the bucket and filled it up--yea, filled it up to
the brim;
But Jack he sneered at his sister Jill, and Jill she jeered at him:
“What, blown already!” Jack cried out (and his was a biting mirth!)
“You boast indeed of your wonderful speed--but what is the boasting
worth?
Now, if you can run as the antelope runs and if you can turn like a
hare,
Come, race me, Jill, to the foot of the hill--and prove your
boasting fair!”
“Race? What is a race” (and a mocking face had Jill as she spake
the word)
“Unless for a prize the runner tries? The truth indeed ye heard,
For I can run as the antelope runs, and I can turn like a hare:--
The first one down wins half-a-crown--and I will race you there!”
“Yea, if for the lesson that you will learn (the lesson of humbled
pride)
The price you fix at two-and-six, it shall not be denied;
Come, take your stand at my right hand, for here is the mark we
toe:
Now, are you ready, and are you steady? Gird up your petticoats!
Go!”

And Jill she ran like a winging bolt, a bolt from the bow released,
But Jack like a stream of the lightning gleam, with its pathway
duly greased;
He ran down hill in front of Jill like a summer-lightning flash--
Till he suddenly tripped on a stone, or slipped, and fell to the
earth with a crash.
Then straight did rise on his wondering eyes the constellations
fair,
Arcturus and the Pleiades, the Greater and Lesser Bear,
The swirling rain of a comet’s train he saw, as he swiftly fell--
And Jill came tumbling after him with a loud triumphant yell:
“You have won, you have won, the race is done! And as for the wager
laid--
You have fallen down with a broken crown--the half-crown debt is
paid!”

They have taken Jack to the room at the back where the family
medicines are,
And he lies in bed with a broken head in a halo of vinegar;
While, in that Jill had laughed her fill as her brother fell to
earth,
She had felt the sting of a walloping--she hath paid the price of
her mirth!