The Book of Humorous Verse Part 181

THE OCEAN WANDERER

Bright breaks the warrior o'er the ocean wave Through realms that rove not, clouds that cannot save, Sinks in the suns.h.i.+ne; dazzles o'er the tomb And mocks the mutiny of Memory's gloom.

Oh! who can feel the crimson ecstasy That soothes with bickering jar the Glorious Tree?

O'er the high rock the foam of gladness throws, While star-beams lull Vesuvius to repose: Girds the white spray, and in the blue lagoon, Weeps like a walrus o'er the waning moon?

Who can declare?--not thou, pervading boy Whom pibrochs pierce not, crystals cannot cloy;-- Not thou soft Architect of silvery gleams, Whose soul would simmer in Hesperian streams, Th' exhaustless fire--the bosom's azure bliss, That hurtles, life-like, o'er a scene like this;-- Defies the distant agony of Day-- And sweeps o'er hecatombs--away! away!

Say shall Destruction's lava load the gale, The furnace quiver and the mountain quail?

Say shall the son of Sympathy pretend His cedar fragrance with our Chief's to blend?

There, where the gnarled monuments of sand Howl their dark whirlwinds to the levin brand; Conclusive tenderness; fraternal grog, Tidy conjunction; adamantine bog, Impetuous arrant toadstool; Thundering quince, Repentant dog-star, inessential Prince, Expound. Pre-Adamite eventful gun, Crush retribution, currant-jelly, pun, Oh! eligible Darkness, fender, sting, Heav'n-born Insanity, courageous thing.

Intending, bending, scouring, piercing all, Death like pomatum, tea, and crabs must fall.

_Unknown._

SCIENTIFIC PROOF

If we square a lump of pemmican And cube a pot of tea, Divide a musk ox by the span From noon to half-past three; If we calculate the Eskimo By solar parallax, Divide the s.e.xtant by a floe And multiply the cracks By nth-powered igloos, we may prove All correlated facts.

If we prolongate the parallel Indefinitely forth, And cube a sledge till we can tell The real square root of North; Bisect a seal and bifurcate The tangent with a pack Of Polar ice, we get the rate Along the Polar track, And proof of corollary things Which otherwise we lack.

If we multiply the Arctic night By X times ox times moose, And build an igloo on the site Of its hypotenuse; If we circ.u.mscribe an arc about An Arctic dog and weigh A segment of it, every doubt Is made as clear as day.

We also get the price of ice F. O. B. Baffin's Bay.

If we amplify the Arctic breeze By logarithmic signs, And run through the isosceles Imaginary lines, We find that twice the half of one Is equal to the whole.

Which, when the calculus is done, Quite demonstrates the Pole.

It also gives its length and breadth And what's the price of coal.

_J. W. Foley._

THE THINGUMBOB

A PASTEL

The Thingumbob sat at eventide, On the sh.o.r.e of a sh.o.r.eless sea, Expecting an unexpected attack From something it could not foresee.

A still calm rests on the angry waves, The low wind whistles a mournful tune, And the Thingumbob sighs to himself, "Alas, I've had no supper now since noon."

_Unknown._

WONDERS OF NATURE

Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies?

When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flower; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt wave, and, fish-like, try to swim?

The same with plants, potatoes 'tatoes breed, The costly cabbage springs from cabbage-seed; Lettuce to lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed; Nor e'er did cooling cuc.u.mbers presume To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom.

_The Anti-Jacobin._

LINES BY AN OLD FOGY

I'm thankful that the sun and moon Are both hung up so high, That no presumptuous hand can stretch And pull them from the sky.

If they were not, I have no doubt But some reforming a.s.s Would recommend to take them down And light the world with gas.

_Unknown._

A COUNTRY SUMMER PASTORAL

As written by a learned scholar of the city from knowledge derived from etymological deductions rather than from actual experience.

I would flee from the city's rule and law, From its fas.h.i.+on and form cut loose, And go where the strawberry grows on its straw, And the gooseberry on its goose; Where the catnip tree is climbed by the cat As she crouches for her prey-- The guileless and unsuspecting rat On the rattan bush at play.

I will watch at ease for the saffron cow And the cowlet in their glee, As they leap in joy from bough to bough On the top of the cowslip tree; Where the musical partridge drums on his drum, And the dog devours the dogwood plum And the wood chuck chucks his wood, In the primitive solitude.

And then to the whitewashed dairy I'll turn, Where the dairymaid hastening hies, Her ruddy and golden-haired b.u.t.ter to churn From the milk of her b.u.t.terflies; And I'll rise at morn with the early bird, To the fragrant farm-yard pa.s.s, When the farmer turns his beautiful herd Of gra.s.shoppers out to gra.s.s.

_Unknown._

TURVEY TOP

'Twas after a supper of Norfolk brawn That into a doze I chanced to drop, And thence awoke in the grey of dawn, In the wonder-land of Turvey Top.

A land so strange I never had seen, And could not choose but look and laugh-- A land where the small the great includes, And the whole is less than the half!

A land where the circles were not lines Round central points, as schoolmen show, And the parallels met whenever they chose, And went playing at touch-and-go!

There--except that every round was square, And save that all the squares were rounds-- No surface had limits anywhere, So they never could beat the bounds.