The Book of Humorous Verse. Various

The Book of Humorous Verse - Various


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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 rehearses; Her album 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 publishing, 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.

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The prospect is bare and white, And the air is crisp and chill; While the ebon wings of night Are spread on the distant hill. The roar of the stormy sea Seem the dirges shrill and sharp That winter plays on the tree— His wild Æolian harp. In the pool that darkly creeps In ripples before the gale, A star like a lily sleeps And wiggles its silver tail. R. K. Munkittrick.

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