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.
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!
A very enjoyable lot, 'tis clear,
Was the lot of the humorous pioneer.
THE QUEST OF THE PURPLE
COW
He girded on his shining sword,
He clad him in his suit of mail,
He gave his friends the parting word,
With high resolve his face was pale.
They said, "You've kissed the Papal
Toe,
To great Moguls you've made your
bow,
Why will you thus world-wandering go?"
"I never saw a purple cow!" "I never saw a purple cow!
Oh, hinder not my wild empriseLet me depart! For even now
Perhaps, before some yokel's eyes The purpling creature dashes by,
Bending its noble, hornèd brow. They see its glowing charms, but II never saw a purple cow!"
"But other cows there be," they said, "Both cows of high and low degree, Suffolk and Devon, brown, black, red, The Ayrshire and the Alderney. Content yourself with these." "No, no,"
He cried, "Not these! Not these!
For how
Can common kine bring comfort? Oh!
I never saw a purple cow!"
He flung him to his charger's back,
He left his kindred limp and weak, They cried: "He goes, alack! alack! The unattainable to seek." But westward still he rode-pardee! The West! Where such freaks be; I Vow,
I'd not be much surprised if he
IF THEY MEANT ALL THEY SAID
Charm is a woman's strongest arm;
My charwoman is full of charm;
I chose her, not for strength of arm
But for her strange, elusive charm.
And how tears heighten woman's powers!
My typist weeps for hours and hours:
I took her for her weeping powers-
They so delight my business hours.
A woman lives by intuition.
Though my accountant shuns addition
She has the rarest intuition.
(And I myself can do addition.)
Timidity in girls is nice.
My cook is so afraid of mice.
Now you'll admit it's very nice
To feel your cook's afraid of mice.
ALICE DUER MILLER.
Woman's place is on the nerves.
A TALE OF FOREIGN LANDS
The Camel is a noble brute,
Across the sands he loves to scoot;
He has to live in foreign lands,
For here we don't have many sands.
To foreign lands the Tourist goes;
Though why he does it no one knows.
For nothing he may see or learn
Will interest us on his return.
The Native is a curious chap;
He lives in corners of the map.
The countries that are coloured pink
Are where the Native lives-I think.
Now in this picture you may see
The Camel, Tourist, Native-three;
Why they run round the pyramid
I do not know; and never did.
With Pictures by the Author
The world is full of stupid folks, who seem to think it true
That just because a man makes jokes, that's all that he can do!
The time has come for me to tell that, ever since my birth,
I've drawn an animal as well as any man on earth!
The Horse has been my closest friend. I feel no small remorse
To think so little time I spend within his stall, perforce.
His every point I comprehend: he draws me round, of course:-
Yet there are people who contend I cannot draw a horse!
The trusty Dog is wont to think my friendship firm and warm.
He comes to me for food and drink and shelter from the storm.
You'll never see him cringe or shrink, but on my lap he'll swarm:-
Yet there are those who slyly wink when I depict his form!
The vigilant, voracious Goat regards my word as law,
A fact which surely must denote he never found a flaw
In anything I drew or wrote, but all with pleasure saw:-
Yet I have heard some critics vote that Goats I cannot draw!
The Walrus in his chilly clime, upon the arctic floe,
Was my companion many a time, and who so well could show
How he pursues, with mien sublime, the codfish o'er the snow?
Yet people say, "Perhaps in rhyme-but drawing him? Oh, no!"
The Camel, indolent and slim, I beckon with my hand.
To meet and greet me he will skim, rejoicing, o'er the sand.
He stretches every agile limb to answer my command:-
And yet they cry that sketching him I do not understand!
The Kangaroo, the Kangaroo! He's almost like my twin,
So oft together at the Zoo in converse have we been.
I love him well, he loves me true, I'm sure we two are kin:-
Yet some ejaculate, "Pooh, pooh! He makes him far too thin!"
The Polar Bear, of manners cold, has told me in despair
That really he could not have told how, why, or when, or where
He could have found a friend so bold, for whom he'd learn to care:-
Yet there are certain men who hold I cannot draw a Bear!
The Tiger used to leave his feast whenever I drew near-
(Not incommoded in the least, but with a smile sincere).
When I was sailing from the East he sent a case of beer:-
Yet in my pictures of the beast they say there's something queer!
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