The Book of Humorous Verse Part 174

Uncle Simon he Clumb up a tree To see What he could see, When presentlee Uncle Jim Clumb up beside of him And squatted down by he.

_Charles Farrar Browne_ (Artemus Ward).

A TRAGIC STORY

There lived a sage in days of yore, And he a handsome pigtail wore; But wondered much and sorrowed more, Because it hung behind him.

He mused upon this curious case, And swore he'd change the pigtail's place, And have it hanging at his face, Not dangling there behind him.

Says he, "The mystery I've found,-- I'll turn me round,"--he turned him round; But still it hung behind him.

Then round and round, and out and in, All day the puzzled sage did spin; In vain--it mattered not a pin,-- The pigtail hung behind him.

And right and left, and round about, And up and down, and in and out, He turned; but still the pigtail stout Hung steadily behind him.

And though his efforts never slack, And though he twist and twirl and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back, The pigtail hangs behind him.

_W. M. Thackeray._

SONNET FOUND IN A DESERTED MAD HOUSE

Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize!

For the old egg of my desire is broken, Spilled is the pearly white and spilled the yolk, and As the mild melancholy contents grease My path the shorn lamb baas like b.u.mblebees.

Time's trashy purse is as a taken token Or like a thrilling recitation, spoken By mournful mouths filled full of mirth and cheese.

And yet, why should I clasp the earthful urn?

Or find the frittered fig that felt the fast?

Or choose to chase the cheese around the churn?

Or swallow any pill from out the past?

Ah, no Love, not while your hot kisses burn Like a potato riding on the blast.

_Unknown._

THE JIM-JAM KING OF THE JOU-JOUS

AN ARABIAN LEGEND

Translated from the Arabic

Far off in the waste of desert sand, The Jim-jam rules in the Jou-jou land: He sits on a throne of red-hot rocks, And moccasin snakes are his curling locks; And the Jou-jous have the conniption fits In the far-off land where the Jim-jam sits-- If things are now as things were then.

Allah il Allah! Oo-aye! Amen!

The country's so dry in Jou-jou land You could wet it down with Sahara sand, And over its boundaries the air Is hotter than 'tis--no matter where: A camel drops down completely tanned When he crosses the line in Jou-jou land-- If things are now as things were then.

Allah il Allah! Oo-aye! Amen!

A traveller once got stuck in the sand On the fiery edge of Jou-jou land; The Jou-jous they confiscated him, And the Jim-jam tore him limb from limb; But, dying, he said: "If eaten I am, I'll disagree with this Dam-jim-jam!

He'll think his stomach's a Hoodoo's den!"

Allah il Allah! Oo-aye! Amen!

Then the Jim-jam felt so bad inside, It just about humbled his royal pride.

He decided to physic himself with sand, And throw up his job in the Jou-jou land.

He descended his throne of red-hot rocks, And hired a barber to cut his locks: The barber died of the got-'em-again.

Allah il Allah! Oo-aye! Amen!

And now let every good Mussulman Get all the good from this tale he can.

If you wander off on a Jamboree, Across the stretch of the desert sea, Look out that right at the height of your booze You don't get caught by the Jou-jou-jous!

You may, for the Jim-jam's at it again.

Allah il Allah! Oo-aye! Amen!

_Alaric Bertrand Stuart._

TO MARIE

When the breeze from the bluebottle's bl.u.s.tering blim Twirls the toads in a tooroomaloo, And the whiskery whine of the wheedlesome whim Drowns the roll of the rattatattoo, Then I dream in the shade of the shally-go-shee, And the voice of the bally-molay Brings the smell of stale poppy-cods blummered in blee From the w.i.l.l.y-wad over the way.

Ah, the shuddering shoo and the blinketty-blanks When the yungalung falls from the bough In the blast of a hurricane's hicketty-hanks On the hills of the hocketty-how!

Give the rigamarole to the clangery-whang, If they care for such fiddlededee; But the thingumbob kiss of the whangery-bang Keeps the higgledy-piggle for me.

L'ENVOI

It is pilly-po-doddle and aligobung When the lollypop covers the ground, Yet the poldiddle perishes punketty-pung When the heart jimmy-coggles around.

If the soul cannot snoop at the giggle-some cart, Seeking surcease in gluggety-glug, It is useless to say to the pulsating heart, "Panky-doodle ker-chuggetty-chug!"

_John Bennett._

MY DREAM

I dreamed a dream next Tuesday week, Beneath the apple-trees; I thought my eyes were big pork-pies, And my nose was Stilton cheese.

The clock struck twenty minutes to six, When a frog sat on my knee; I asked him to lend me eighteenpence, But he borrowed a s.h.i.+lling of me.