The Book of Humorous Verse Part 56

Never more will I suppose, You can taste my verse or prose.

IX

You no more at me shall fret, While I teach and you forget.

X

You shall never hear me thunder, When you blunder on, and blunder.

XI

Show your poverty of spirit, And in dress place all your merit; Give yourself ten thousand airs: That with me shall break no squares.

XII

Never will I give advice, Till you please to ask me thrice: Which if you in scorn reject, 'T will be just as I expect.

Thus we both shall have our ends And continue special friends.

_Dean Swift._

ALL-SAINTS

In a church which is furnish'd with mullion and gable, With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable, The odour of sanct.i.ty's eau-de-Cologne.

But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades, Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints, He would say, as he look'd at the lords and the ladies, "Oh, where is All-Sinners', if this is All-Saints'?"

_Edmund Yates._

HOW TO MAKE A MAN OF CONSEQUENCE

A brow austere, a circ.u.mspective eye.

A frequent shrug of the _os humeri_; A nod significant, a stately gait, A bl.u.s.tering manner, and a tone of weight, A smile sarcastic, an expressive stare: Adopt all these, as time and place will bear; Then rest a.s.sur'd that those of little sense Will deem you sure a man of consequence.

_Mark Lemon._

ON A MAGAZINE SONNET

"Scorn not the sonnet," though its strength be sapped, Nor say malignant its inventor blundered; The corpse that here in fourteen lines is wrapped Had otherwise been covered with a hundred.

_Russell Hilliard Loines._

PARADISE

A HINDOO LEGEND

A Hindoo died--a happy thing to do When twenty years united to a shrew.

Released, he hopefully for entrance cries Before the gates of Brahma's Paradise.

"Hast been through Purgatory?" Brahma said.

"I have been married," and he hung his head.

"Come in, come in, and welcome, too, my son!

Marriage and Purgatory are as one."

In bliss extreme he entered heaven's door, And knew the peace he ne'er had known before.

He scarce had entered in the Garden fair, Another Hindoo asked admission there.

The self-same question Brahma asked again: "Hast been through Purgatory?" "No; what then?"

"Thou canst not enter!" did the G.o.d reply.

"He that went in was no more there than I."

"Yes, that is true, but he has married been, And so on earth has suffered for all sin."

"Married? 'Tis well; for I've been married twice!"

"Begone! We'll have no fools in Paradise!"

_George Birdseye._

THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GRAY

I am a friar of orders gray, And down in the valleys I take my way; I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip; Good store of venison fills my scrip; My long bead-roll I merrily chant; Where'er I walk no money I want; And why I'm so plump the reason I tell: Who leads a good life is sure to live well.

What baron or squire, Or knight of the s.h.i.+re, Lives half so well as a holy friar?

After supper, of heaven I dream, But that is a pullet and clouted cream; Myself by denial I mortify-- With a dainty bit of a warden-pie; I'm clothed in sackcloth for my sin-- With old sack wine I'm lined within; A chirping cup is my matin song, And the vesper's bell is my bowl, ding-dong.

What baron or squire, Or knight of the s.h.i.+re, Lives half so well as a holy friar?

_John O'Keefe._

OF A CERTAIN MAN