The Book of Humorous Verse Part 3

WHEN MOONLIKE ORE THE HAZURE SEAS

When moonlike ore the hazure seas In soft effulgence swells, When silver jews and balmy breaze Bend down the Lily's bells; When calm and deap, the rosy sleap Has lapt your soal in dreems, R Hangeline! R lady mine!

Dost thou remember Jeames?

I mark thee in the Marble all, Where England's loveliest s.h.i.+ne-- I say the fairest of them hall Is Lady Hangeline.

My soul, in desolate eclipse, With recollection teems-- And then I hask, with weeping lips, Dost thou remember Jeames?

Away! I may not tell thee hall This soughring heart endures-- There is a lonely sperrit-call That Sorrow never cures; There is a little, little Star, That still above me beams; It is the Star of Hope--but ar!

Dost thou remember Jeames?

_W. M. Thackeray._

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-c.o.c.k, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bare-headed, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' hearty-like about the atmosphere, When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here-- Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetisin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur that no painter has the colorin' to mock-- When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty rustle of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries--kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below--the clover overhead!-- O, it sets my heart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!

_James Whitcomb Riley._

TWO MEN

There be two men of all mankind That I should like to know about; But search and question where I will, I cannot ever find them out.

Melchizedek he praised the Lord, And gave some wine to Abraham; But who can tell what else he did Must be more learned than I am.

Ucalegon he lost his house When Agamemnon came to Troy; But who can tell me who he was-- I'll pray the G.o.ds to give him joy.

There be two men of all mankind That I'm forever thinking on; They chase me everywhere I go,-- Melchizedek, Ucalegon.

_Edwin Arlington Robinson._

A FAMILIAR LETTER TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS

Yes, write if you want to--there's nothing like trying; Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?

I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying, If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words: one can choose as he fancies, As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; Just think! all the poems and plays and romances Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes, And take all you want--not a copper they cost; What is there to hinder your picking out phrases For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero; Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; Leander and Lillian and Lillibullero Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.

There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother That boarding-school flavour of which we're afraid; There is "lush" is a good one and "swirl" is another; Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.

With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"

Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions For winning the laurels to which you aspire, By docking the tails of the two prepositions I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.

As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty For ringing the changes on metrical chimes; A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty, Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.

Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant-- By a famous old hand in the arts of design; 'Tis only a photographed sketch of an elephant; The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.

How easy! no troublesome colours to lay on; It can't have fatigued him, no, not in the least; A dash here and there with a haphazard crayon, And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.

Just so with your verse--'tis as easy as sketching; You can reel off a song without knitting your brow, As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching; It is nothing at all, if you only know how.

Well, imagine you've printed your volume of verses; Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame; Your poem the eloquent school-boy rehea.r.s.es; Her alb.u.m the school-girl presents for your name.

Each morning the post brings you autograph letters; You'll answer them promptly--an hour isn't much For the honour of sharing a page with your betters, With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.

Of course you're delighted to serve the committees That come with requests from the country all round; You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties When they've got a new school-house, or poor-house, or pound.

With a hymn for the saints, and a song for the sinners, You go and are welcome wherever you please; You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners; You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.

At length your mere presence becomes a sensation; Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration, As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That's him!"

But, remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous, So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, The ovum was human from which you were hatched.

No will of your own, with its puny compulsion, Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre; It comes, if at all, like the sibyl's convulsion, And touches the brain with a finger of fire.

So, perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet, If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet To the critics, by publis.h.i.+ng, as you propose.

But it's all of no use, and I'm sorry I've written; I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten, And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes._