The Book of Humorous Verse Part 96

We seek to know, and knowing seek; We seek, we know, and every sense Is trembling with the great Intense And vibrating to what we speak.

We ask too much, we seek too oft, We know enough, and should no more; And yet we skim through Fancy's lore And look to earth and not aloft.

A something comes from out the gloom; I know it not, nor seek to know; I only see it swell and grow, And more than this world would presume.

Meseems, a circling void I fill, And I, unchanged where all is changed; It seems unreal; I own it strange, Yet nurse the thoughts I cannot kill.

I hear the ocean's surging tide, Raise quiring on its carol-tune; I watch the golden-sickled moon, And clearer voices call beside.

O Sea! whose ancient ripples lie On red-ribbed sands where seaweeds shone; O Moon! whose golden sickle's gone; O Voices all! like ye I die!

_Cuthbert Bede._

LUCY LAKE

Poor Lucy Lake was overgrown, But somewhat underbrained.

She did not know enough, I own, To go in when it rained.

Yet Lucy was constrained to go; Green bedding,--you infer.

Few people knew she died, but oh, The difference to her!

_Newton Mackintosh._

THE c.o.c.k 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-tailed 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 s.h.i.+lling 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, Alexandrina 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 s.h.i.+lling--and for matter o' that, the pence-- I had o' course upo' me--wi' me say-- (_Mec.u.m's_ the Latin, make a note o' that) When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratched ear, wiped snout,

(Let everybody wipe his own himself) Sniff'd--tch!--at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed, Haw-haw'd (not he-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,) Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes, And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves, One on and one a-dangle i' in my hand, And ombrifuge (Lord love you!) cas o' rain, I flopped forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes, (I do a.s.sure 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.

Put 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 for mumping Pope, Sleek porporate or bloated cardinal.

(Isn't it, old Fatchops? You're in Euclid now.) So, having the s.h.i.+lling--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, Fatchops, 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, bewigged, 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, _Rer juris operationem_, vests I' the boy and his a.s.signs till ding o' doom; _In saecula saeculo-o-orum_; (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 em rem_, (I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat) Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should, _Subaudi caetera_--clap we to the close-- For what's the good of law in such 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 a.s.s!

Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby _me_!

Go double or quits? Yah! t.i.ttup! what's the odds?"

--There's the transaction viewed in the vendor's light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes, The sc.u.m o' the Kennel, cream o' the filth-heap--Faugh!

Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek: otototototoi], ('Stead which we blurt out, Hoighty toighty now)-- And the baker and candlestick maker, and Jack and Gill.

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 (Agreeable to the law explained above).

_In proprium usum_, for his private ends, The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit I' the face the s.h.i.+lling; 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 _Verb.u.m personale_, a verb personal, _Concordat_--ay, "agrees," old Fatchops--_c.u.m_ _Nominativo_, with its nominative, _Genere_, i' point of 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.

_Charles Stuart Calverley._

BALLAD

The auld wife sat at her ivied door, (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) A thing she had frequently done before; And her spectacles lay on her ap.r.o.n'd knees.

The piper he piped on the hilltop high, (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) Till the cow said "I die," and the goose asked "Why?"

And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) His last brew of ale was a trifle hard-- The connection of which the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and sh.e.l.ls her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.