THE BOOK OF HUMOROUS VERSE

Compiled by CAROLYN WELLS Author of "Such Nonsense," "The Whimsey Anthology," etc., etc. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY [Pg iv] PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO ROBERT CHAPMAN SPRAGUE [Pg v]

INTRODUCTION

A hope of immortality and a sense of humor distinguish man from the beasts of the field.

A single exception may be made, perhaps, of the Laughing Hyena, and, on the other hand, not every one of the human race possesses the power of laughter. For those who do, this volume is intended.

And since there can be nothing humorous about an introduction, there can be small need of a lengthy one.

Merely a few explanations of conditions which may be censured by captious critics.

First, the limitations of space had to be recognized. Hence, the book is a compilation, not a collection. It is representative, but not exhaustive. My ambition was toward a volume to which everyone could go, with a surety of finding any one of his favorite humorous poems between these covers. But no covers of one book could insure that, so I reluctantly gave up the dream for a reality which I trust will make it possible for a majority of seekers to find their favorites here.

The compiler's course is a difficult one. The Scylla of Popularity lures him on the one hand, while the Charybdis of the Classical charms him on the other. He has nothing to steer by but his own good taste, and good taste, alack, is greatly a matter of opinion.

And no opinion seemeth good unto an honest compiler, save his own. Wherefore, the choice of these selections, like kissing, went by favor. As to the arrangement of them, every compiler will tell you that Classification is Vexation. And why not? When many a poem may be both Parody and Satire,—both Romance and Cynicism. Wherefore, the compiler sorted with loving care the selections here presented striving to do justice to the verses themselves, and taking a chance on the tolerant good nature of the reader. [Pg vi]

For,

"A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it. Never in the tongue Of him that makes it."

Which made me all the more careful to do my authors justice, leaving the prosperity of the jests to the hearers.

Carolyn Wells. [Pg vii]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The compiler is indebted to the publisher or author, as noted below, for the use of copyright material included in this volume. Special arrangements have been made with the authorized publishers of those American poets, whose works in whole or in part have lapsed copyright. All rights of these poems have been reserved by the authorized publisher, author or holder of the copyright as indicated in the following:

Little, Brown & Company: For selections from the Poems and Limericks of Edward Lear.

The Macmillan Company: For selections from the Poems of Lewis Carroll and Verses from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass."

Harr Wagner Publishing Company: For permission to reprint from "The Complete Poems" of Joaquin Miller "That Gentle Man From Boston Town," "That Texan Cattle Man," "William Brown of Oregon."

Frederick A. Stokes Company: "Bessie Brown, M.D." and "A Kiss in the Rain," by Samuel Minturn Peck.

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company: For the inclusion of the following Poems by Sam Walter Foss: "The Meeting of the Clabberhuses," "A Philosopher" and "The Prayer of Cyrus Brown" from "Dreams in Homespun," copyright, 1897. "Then Agin—" and "Husband and Heathen," from "Back Country Poems," copyright, 1894. "The Ideal Husband to His Wife," from "Whiffs from Wild Meadows," copyright, 1895.

Forbes & Company: "How Often?" "If I Should Die To-night," and "The Pessimist," by Ben King.

The Century Company: For permission to reprint from St. Nicholas Magazine the following poems by Ruth McEnery Stuart: "The Endless Song" and "The Hen-Roost Man"; and by Tudor Jenks: "An Old Bachelor"; and by Mary [Pg viii] Mapes Dodge: "Home and Mother," "Life in Laconics," "Over the Way" and "The Zealless Xylographer."

Thomas L. Masson: For permission to reprint "The Kiss" from "Life."

E. P. Button & Company: "The Converted Cannibals" and "The Retired Pork-Butcher and the Spook," by G. E. Farrow.

Houghton Mifflin Company: With their permission and by special arrangement, as authorized publishers of the following authors' works, are used: Selections from Nora Perry, John Townsend Trowbridge, Charles E. Carryl, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bret Harte, James Thomas Fields, John G. Saxe, James Russell Lowell and Bayard Taylor.

A. P. Watt & Son and Doubleday, Page & Company: For their permission to use "Divided Destinies," "Study of an Elevation, in Indian Ink," and "Commonplaces," by Rudyard Kipling.

G. P. Putnam's Sons: Selections from the Poems of Eugene Fitch Ware and "The Wreck of the 'Julie Plante,'" by William Henry Drummond.

Henry Holt & Company: Two Parodies from "— and Other Poets," by Louis Untermeyer.

Dodd, Mead & Company: "The Constant Cannibal Maiden," "Blow Me Eyes" and "A Grain of Salt," by Wallace Irwin.

John Lane Company: For Poems by Owen Seaman, Anthony C. Deane and G. K. Chesterton.

The Smart Set: "Dighton is Engaged," and "Kitty Wants to Write," by Gelett Burgess.

Small, Maynard & Company: For selections from Holman F. Day, Richard Hovey and Clinton Scollard.

The Bobbs-Merrill Company: For special permission to reprint from the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley (copyright, 1913) the following Poems: "Little Orphant Annie," "The Lugubrious Whing-Whang," "The Man in the Moon," "The Old Man and Jim," "Prior to Miss Belle's Appearance," "Spirk Throll-Derisive," "When the Frost is on the Punkin."

The Bobbs-Merrill Company: For permission to use the [Pg ix] following Poems by Robert J. Burdette, from "Smiles Yoked with Sighs" (copyright, 1900), "Orphan Born," "The Romance of the Carpet," "Soldier, Rest!", "Songs without Words," "What Will We Do?".

Charles Scribner's Sons: For permission to use "The Dinkey-Bird," "Dutch Lullaby," "The Little Peach," "The Truth About Horace," by Eugene Field. [Pg x]

THE BOOK OF HUMOROUS VERSE

[Pg 25]

BANTER

THE PLAYED-OUT HUMOURIST

Quixotic is his enterprise and hopeless his adventure is, Who seeks for jocularities that haven't yet been said; The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries, And every joke that's possible has long ago been made. I started as a humourist with lots of mental fizziness, But humour is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse; For my stock-in-trade, my fixtures and the good-will of the business No reasonable offer I am likely to refuse. And if anybody choose He may circulate the news That no reasonable offer I am likely to refuse. Oh, happy was that humourist—the first that made a pun at all— Who when a joke occurred to him, however poor and mean, Was absolutely certain that it never had been done at all— How popular at dinners must that humourist have been! Oh, the days when some step-father for a query held a handle out,— The door-mat from the scraper, is it distant very far? And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron put the candle out, And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar! But your modern hearers are In their tastes particular,

And they sneer if you inform them that a door can be a jar! In search of quip and quiddity I've sat all day alone, apart— And all that I could hit on as a problem was—to find Analogy between a scrag of mutton and a Bony-part, Which offers slight employment to the speculative mind. [Pg 26] For you cannot call it very good, however great your charity— It's not the sort of humour that is greeted with a shout— And I've come to the conclusion that my mine of jocularity, In present Anno Domini is worked completely out! Though the notion you may scout, I can prove beyond a doubt That my mine of jocularity is worked completely out!

W. S. Gilbert.

THE PRACTICAL JOKER

Oh, what a fund of joy jocund lies hid in harmless hoaxes!

What keen enjoyment springs

From cheap and simple things!

What deep delight from sources trite inventive humour coaxes,

That pain and trouble brew

For every one but you!

Gunpowder placed inside its waist improves a mild Havana,

Its unexpected flash

Burns eyebrows and moustache.

When people dine no kind of wine beats ipecacuanha,

But common sense suggests

You keep it for your guests—

Then naught annoys the organ boys like throwing red hot coppers.

And much amusement bides

In common butter slides;

And stringy snares across the stairs cause unexpected croppers.

Coal scuttles, recollect,

Produce the same effect.

A man possessed

Of common sense

Need not invest

At great expense—

[Pg 27]

It does not call

For pocket deep,

These jokes are all

Extremely cheap.

If you commence with eighteenpence—it's all you'll have to pay;

You may command a pleasant and a most instructive day.

A good spring gun breeds endless fun, and makes men jump like rockets—

And turnip heads on posts

Make very decent ghosts.

Then hornets sting like anything, when placed in waistcoat pockets—

Burnt cork and walnut juice

Are not without their use.

No fun compares with easy chairs whose seats are stuffed with needles—

Live shrimps their patience tax

When put down people's backs.

Surprising, too, what one can do with a pint of fat black beetles—

And treacle on a chair

Will make a Quaker swear!

Then sharp tin tacks

And pocket squirts—

And cobbler's wax

For ladies' skirts—

And slimy slugs

On bedroom floors—

And water jugs

On open doors—

Prepared with these cheap properties, amusing tricks to play

Upon a friend a man may spend a most delightful day.

W. S. Gilbert.

TO PHŒBE

"Gentle, modest little flower, Sweet epitome of May, Love me but for half an hour, Love me, love me, little fay." Sentences so fiercely flaming In your tiny, shell-like ear, I should always be exclaiming If I loved you, Phœbe dear. "Smiles that thrill from any distance Shed upon me while I sing! Please ecstaticize existence, Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!" Words like these, outpouring sadly, You'd perpetually hear, If I loved you fondly, madly;— But I do not, Phœbe dear.

W. S. Gilbert.

MALBROUCK

Malbrouck, the prince of commanders, Is gone to the war in Flanders; His fame is like Alexander's; But when will he come home? Perhaps at Trinity Feast, or Perhaps he may come at Easter. Egad! he had better make haste, or We fear he may never come. For Trinity Feast is over, And has brought no news from Dover; And Easter is past, moreover, And Malbrouck still delays. [Pg 29] Milady in her watch-tower Spends many a pensive hour, Not well knowing why or how her Dear lord from England stays. While sitting quite forlorn in That tower, she spies returning A page clad in deep mourning, With fainting steps and slow. "O page, prithee, come faster! What news do you bring of your master? I fear there is some disaster, Your looks are so full of woe." "The news I bring, fair lady," With sorrowful accent said he, "Is one you are not ready So soon, alas! to hear. "But since to speak I'm hurried," Added this page, quite flurried, "Malbrouck is dead and buried!" (And here he shed a tear.) "He's dead! he's dead as a herring! For I beheld his 'berring,' And four officers transferring

His corpse away from the field. "One officer carried his sabre, And he carried it not without labour, Much envying his next neighbour, Who only bore a shield. "The third was helmet-bearer— That helmet which on its wearer Filled all who saw with terror, And covered a hero's brains. [Pg 30] "Now, having got so far, I Find that (by the Lord Harry!) The fourth is left nothing to carry; So there the thing remains."

MARK TWAIN: A PIPE DREAM

Well I recall how first I met Mark Twain—an infant barely three Rolling a tiny cigarette While cooing on his nurse's knee. Since then in every sort of place I've met with Mark and heard him joke, Yet how can I describe his face? I never saw it for the smoke. At school he won a smokership, At Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.) His name was soon on every lip, They made him "smoker" of his class. Who will forget his smoking bout With Mount Vesuvius—our cheers— When Mount Vesuvius went out And didn't smoke again for years? The news was flashed to England's King, Who begged Mark Twain to come and stay, Offered him dukedoms—anything To smoke the London fog away. But Mark was firm. "I bow," said he, "To no imperial command, No ducal coronet for me, My smoke is for my native land!" [Pg 31] For Mark there waits a brighter crown! When Peter comes his card to read— He'll take the sign "No Smoking" down, Then Heaven will be Heaven indeed.

Oliver Herford.

FROM A FULL HEART

In days of peace my fellow-men Rightly regarded me as more like A Bishop than a Major-Gen., And nothing since has made me warlike; But when this age-long struggle ends And I have seen the Allies dish up The goose of Hindenburg—oh, friends! I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop. When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint; When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe. I never really longed for gore, And any taste for red corpuscles That lingered with me left before The German troops had entered Brussels. In early days the Colonel's "'Shun!" Froze me; and as the war grew older The noise of some one else's gun Left me considerably colder. When the War is over and the battle has been won I'm going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run; When the War is over and the German fleet we sink I'm going to keep a silkworm's egg and listen to it think. The Captains and the Kings depart— It may be so, but not lieutenants; Dawn after weary dawn I start

The never ending round of penance; [Pg 32] One rock amid the welter stands On which my gaze is fixed intently: An after-life in quiet lands Lived very lazily and gently. When the War is over and we've done the Belgians proud I'm going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud; When the War is over and we've finished up the show I'm going to plant a lemon pip and listen to it grow. Oh, I'm tired of the noise and turmoil of battle, And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle, And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver, And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver, And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting, And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting— Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek.... Say, starting on Saturday week.

A. A. Milne.

THE ULTIMATE JOY

I have felt the thrill of passion in the poet's mystic book And I've lingered in delight to catch the rhythm of the brook; I've felt the ecstasy that comes when prima donnas reach For upper C and hold it in a long, melodious screech. And yet the charm of all these blissful memories fades away As I think upon the fortune that befell the other day, As I bring to recollection, with a joyous, wistful sigh, That I woke and felt the need of extra covers in July. Oh, eerie hour of drowsiness—'twas like a fairy spell, That respite from the terrors we have known, alas, so well, The malevolent mosquito, with a limp and idle bill, Hung supinely from the ceiling, all exhausted by his chill. And the early morning sunbeam lost his customary leer And brought a gracious greeting and a prophecy of cheer; A generous affability reached up from earth to sky, When I woke and felt the need of extra covers in July. [Pg 33] In every life there comes a time of happiness supreme, When joy becomes reality and not a glittering dream. 'Tis less appreciated, but it's worth a great deal more

Than tides which taken at their flood lead on to fortune's shore. How vain is Art's illusion, and how potent Nature's sway When once in kindly mood she deigns to waft our woes away! And the memory will cheer me, though all other pleasures fly, Of how I woke and needed extra covers in July.

Unknown.

OLD FASHIONED FUN

When that old joke was new, It was not hard to joke, And puns we now pooh-pooh, Great laughter would provoke. True wit was seldom heard, And humor shown by few, When reign'd King George the Third, And that old joke was new. It passed indeed for wit, Did this achievement rare, When down your friend would sit, To steal away his chair. You brought him to the floor, You bruised him black and blue, And this would cause a roar, When your old joke was new.

W. M. Thackeray.

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 shine— 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-cock, 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, [Pg 35] 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 gods to give him joy. [Pg 36] 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