THE LITTLE 
 
 OF LAUGHTER 
 
 

 
 presented 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN 
 
 by 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY
 
 A Little Volume, 
 but GreatBook. 
 
 CRAJSHAW

 
 
 TKe LITTLE 
 BOOK OF 
 LAUGHTER 
 
 Compiled and Edited 
 with, an Introduction by 
 ltfa//ace and Ranees Rice 
 
 Publishers 
 
 THE REILLY & BRITIDN CO. 
 Chicago
 
 <^ 
 
 I Copyright 191O 
 by 
 
 WieReiltr&BrittonGi 
 <g AIL rights reserved.
 
 Introduction 
 
 IT IS believed that this is the first time a collection 
 of verse devoted to Laughter has been brought to- 
 gether, and the poems which follow will show, better 
 than any description of them, what an interesting and 
 delectable field it is to glean in. Yet Laughter is 
 another of the few topics which have appealed little 
 to the singers of this or any other day. It seems as if 
 there were a distrust of the physical act that struck 
 them dumb before it. It cannot be from lack of the 
 humorous sense; for no person without it can write 
 poetry at all, since precisely the sense of proportion is 
 needed for expression in rhyme and rhythm which the 
 sense of humor ensures. 
 
 Nor is it in any sense true that poetry is lacking in 
 the element of mirth and merriment. On the contrary, 
 much of the finest verse is alive with the spirit of joy, 
 and no small share of our singing is devoted to jollity 
 and conviviality. It is merely that Laughter and 
 Laughing, the crown and pinnacle of human mirthful- 
 ness, have not been seized upon by the poet as suited 
 to his calmer and more remote form of artistic expres- 
 sion. Laughing songs there are, in all languages, but 
 not laughing poems; and it may be shrewdly suspected 
 in these modern days that the poets themselves have 
 been laughed at too much and too often for them to 
 regard Laughter with friendly eyes. 
 
 Yet, as Mr. Blunt proves in the concluding poem of 
 this book, it is possible to treat Laughter seriously and 
 with dignity. Not one living being on this earth 
 laughs as an expression of mirth except mortal man; 
 and if he does not commemorate the fact, surely no one 
 else can. An animal, the hyena, makes a noise that 
 3 
 
 A\
 
 closely resembles our laughter; but the beast is of too 
 disgusting a nature to permit his celebration in poetry. 
 On the other hand, two birds, our own northern loon, 
 and the giant kingfisher or laughing jackass of Austra- 
 lia, also use a sound distinctly akin in sound to our 
 laughter for their customary cry, and both of these 
 have been treated in verses which may be found within. 
 While it is impossible for any one to exhaust the 
 enormous and growing body of English poetry on any 
 topic, it is believed that a large part of the poems 
 devoted to Laughter are included here, their number 
 eked out by verses which mention Laughing, and 
 several which deal with individuals who were regarded 
 as laughworthy. 
 
 WALLACE RICE.
 
 Index of Authors 
 
 Addleshaw, Percy . ... 37 
 
 Bannister, Christopher . . . .33, 34, 45 
 
 Bell, John Joy 21 
 
 Beranger, Pierre Jean de ... 26, 54 
 
 Blanden, Charles G. .... 15, 58 
 
 Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen 62 
 
 Boynton, Henry Walcott .... 40 
 
 Burgess, Gelett 36 
 
 Byron, George Lord . . . . 34, 53 
 
 Campion, Thomas ...... 49 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley 36 
 
 Dobson, Austin ' 12, 28, 60 
 
 Drake, Joseph Rodman ..... 17 
 
 Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans Cross) . . 61 
 
 Gilbert, William Schwenck . . .16, 29, 52 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 13 
 
 Graves, Alfred Perceval ..... 20 
 
 Greene, Matthew ...... 21 
 
 Herbert, George 62 
 
 Herford, Oliver 49 
 
 Heine, Heinrich 51 
 
 Holden, John Jarvis . . 11, 19, 35, 39, 53 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 14 
 
 Hovey, Richard 31 
 
 Hunt, Leigh 9 
 
 Lampman, Archibald 61 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage . . . . 17, 25 
 
 Lowell, James Russell .'.... 61 
 
 Marble, Oliver ... 13, 39, 42, 51, 59 
 
 Marot, Clement 9 
 
 Martialis, Marcus Valerius .... 49 

 
 Martin, Arthur Patchett 
 Milton, John . 
 Peters, William Theodore 
 Pope, Alexander 
 Preston, Margaret Junkin 
 Rabelais, Frangois . 
 Rice, Wallace . r . 
 
 Riley, James Whitcomb . 
 Rose, Ray Clarke 
 Scollard, Clinton 
 Seaman, Owen 
 Shakespeare, William 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 
 Shorter, Dora Sigerson 
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles 
 Symons, Arthur 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord . 
 Toynbee, William . 
 Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
 
 LITTLE 
 BOOK OF 
 LAUGHTER
 
 Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
 Jest and youthful Jollity, 
 Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
 Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
 Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
 And love to live in dimple sleek; 
 Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
 And Laughter holding both his sides. 
 
 John Milton. 
 
 Laughter Holding Both His Sides 
 
 Aye, thou varlet! Laugh away! 
 All the world 's a holiday! 
 Laugh away and roar and shout 
 Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out! 
 Bloat thy cheeks and bulge thine eyes 
 Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs 
 With thy swollen palms, and roar 
 As thou never hast before! 
 Lustier! wilt thou! peal on peal! 
 Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel 
 Wrestle with thy loins, and then 
 Wheeze the whiles, and whoop again! 
 
 James Whitcomb Eiley. 
 
 Laugh, and the world laughs with you; 
 
 Weep, and you weep alone; 
 For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth; 
 It has troubles enough of its own. 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 8
 
 On the Laugh of Madame D'Albret 
 
 Yes, that fair neck, too beautiful by half, 
 
 Those eyes, that voice, that bloom, all do her honor: 
 
 Yet after all, that little giddy laugh 
 Is what, in my mind, sits the best upon her. 
 
 Good God! 'T would make the very streets and ways 
 Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure! 
 Did melancholy come to mar my days, 
 And kill me in the lap of too much leisure, 
 No spell were wanting, from the dead to raise me, 
 But only that sweet laugh, wherewith she slays me. 
 Leigh Hunt, from the French of Marot. 
 
 God gave man 
 
 His life and breath, 
 Gave him knowledge 
 
 Of his death; 
 And thereafter 
 Gave him laughter. 
 
 Wallace Eice. 
 
 9
 
 The Seraph of the Flaming Sword 
 
 The gates had locked and barred, 
 As Father Adam stands aghast 
 
 At life, so newly hard; 
 Eve bows beside him in her tears 
 
 The first she 's ever shed; 
 For on their hearts the primal curse 
 
 Hangs heavier than lead. 
 
 Henceforth in sweat their bread they eat, 
 
 And mourn the sorry fate 
 That drives them from the bliss within 
 
 The paradisal gate; 
 Their angel playmates ne'er again 
 
 They '11 see and doubly grieve 
 As off they set, most mournfully, 
 
 Poor Adam and poor Eve. 
 
 The mountain clays besmear them o'er, 
 
 The wood stains foot and hand 
 They are a funny looking pair 
 
 As eye to eye they stand; 
 When comes a sound of sudden wings 
 
 That turns their sad hearts glad, 
 And lo! there flies down unto them 
 
 A blithesome angel lad. 
 
 His dimpled cheeks are fat and fair, 
 
 His aureole 's askew, 
 His eyes are twinkling, and his smile 
 
 Is broad enough for two; 
 
 10
 
 The look of him is merriment, 
 
 The sight of him is mirth; 
 And Eve and Adam tliink he is 
 
 The jolliest thing on earth! 
 
 "Who sent you?" curious Eve inquires 
 
 She 's curious still, is she; 
 And Adam echoes, "Who sent you?" 
 
 Still following suit, you see. 
 "The Lord in mercy sends me here 
 
 From Eden straight I flew 
 To turn the world all golden, when 
 
 It seems to be all blue." 
 
 No longer lonely, quite refreshed, 
 
 They march beside the boy; 
 The world may have its sorrows, but 
 
 It holds a lot of joy; 
 And ever since, the weariest wight 
 
 Keeps thoughts of Paradise, 
 And quite forgets his work and woe 
 
 When Laughter to him flies. 
 
 Wallace Rice. 
 
 'Twixt a laugh and a sigh 
 
 We come and we go. 
 We are born and we die 
 'Twixt a laugh and a sigh, 
 With the stars in the sky 
 
 Or the sun on the snow 
 'Twixt a laugh and a sigh 
 
 We come and we go. 
 
 John Jarvis Holden. 
 11
 
 A Song of the Four Seasons 
 
 When Spring comes laughing 
 
 By vale and hill, 
 By wind-flower walking 
 
 And daffodil, 
 Sing stars of morning, 
 
 Sing morning skies, 
 Sing blue of speedwell, 
 
 And my Love's eyes. 
 
 When comes the Summer, 
 
 Full-leaved and strong, 
 And gay birds gossip 
 
 The orchard long, 
 Sing hid, sweet honey 
 
 That no bee sips; 
 Sing red, red roses, 
 
 And my Love's lips. 
 
 When Autumn scatters 
 
 The leaves again, 
 And piled sheaves bury 
 
 The broad-wheeled wain, 
 Sing flutes of harvest 
 
 Where men rejoice; 
 Sing rounds of reapers, 
 
 And my Love's voice. 
 
 But when comes Winter 
 With hail and storm, 
 
 And red fire roaring 
 And ingle warm, 
 12
 
 Sing first sad going 
 
 Of friends that part; 
 Then sing glad meeting, 
 
 And my Love's heart. 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 Ye Laughing Maids 
 
 Ye laughing maids, what rippling rill, 
 Though ferny dells its raptures fill, 
 
 Makes dulcet melody like yours? 
 
 What floweret that the bee immures, 
 What moonlit lily, daffodil, 
 Or e'en the rose whose scents distil 
 When sunshine slants on some June hill, 
 
 Hath half the tempting of your lures, 
 Ye laughing maids? 
 
 In sooth, through life, despite the ill 
 Great gods grind slow from mill on mill, 
 Heaped high with woes each year matures, 
 One memory wholly dear endures 
 And this your virgin voices thrill, 
 Ye laughing maids! 
 
 Oliver Marble. 
 
 We look before and after, 
 
 We pine for what is not; 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 18
 
 The Height of the Ridiculous 
 
 I wrote some lines once on a time 
 
 In wondrous merry mood, 
 And thought, as usual, men would say 
 
 They were exceeding good. 
 
 They were so queer, so very queer, 
 
 I laughed as I would die; 
 Albeit, in the general way, 
 
 A sober man am I. 
 
 I called my servant, and he came; 
 
 How kind it was of him 
 To mind a slender man like me, 
 
 He of the mighty limb. 
 
 "These to the printer," I exclaimed, 
 
 And, in my humorous way, 
 I added (as a trifling jest), 
 
 "There '11 be the devil to pay." 
 
 He took the paper, and I watched, 
 
 And saw him peep within; 
 At the first line he read, his face 
 
 Was all upon the grin. 
 
 He read the next; the grin grew broad, 
 
 And shot from ear to ear; 
 He read the third; a chuckling noise 
 
 I now began to hear. 
 
 The fourth; he broke into a roar; 
 The fifth; his waistband split; 
 14
 
 The sixth; he burst five buttons off, 
 And tumbled in a fit. 
 
 Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
 
 I watched that wretched man, 
 And since, I never dare to write 
 
 As funny as I can. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 Shake the midriff of despair with laughter. 
 
 Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
 
 Rigadoon 
 
 Whatever the throng, 
 I will sing my song 
 And gay shall it be, 
 Because, you '11 agree, 
 If bitter the strain 
 There *s nothing to gain 
 And much to be lost 
 And mirth pays the cost, 
 Since earth has no need 
 Of the sad-sighing reed, 
 But much doth desire 
 The balm-breathing lyre. 
 Oh, therefore let me 
 In glad-sounding key 
 Pipe early and late, 
 With sweet Laughter mate, 
 Till Sorrow forget 
 Her lashes so wet 
 And dance to my tune 
 A light rigadoon. 
 
 Charles Q. Blanden. 
 15
 
 Song 
 
 Quixotic is his enterprise, and hopeless his adventure is. 
 Who seeks for jocularities that have n'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 humorist with lots of mental fizziness, 
 
 But humor is a drug that 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. 
 
 O happy was that humorist 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 humorist have 
 
 been! 
 O the days when some stepfather for the 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, 
 16
 
 And they sneer if you inform them that a door can 
 be a- jar! 
 
 And 
 
 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 humor that is greeted with a 
 shout 
 
 I 've come to the conclusion that the mine of 
 jocularity, 
 
 In present Anno Domini, is worked completely out! 
 Though the notion you may scout, 
 I can prove beyond a doubt 
 
 That the mine of jocularity is utterly worked out! 
 
 - William S. Gilbert. 
 
 The man who frets at worldly strife 
 
 Grows sallow, sour, and thin; 
 Give us the lad whose happy life 
 
 Is one perpetual grin! 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake. 
 
 Time past I thought it worth my while 
 To hunt all day to catch a smile: 
 Now ladies do not smile, but laugh, 
 I like it not so much by half; 
 And yet perhaps it might be shown 
 A laugh is but a smile full-blown. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 17
 
 Yet 
 
 Sing me a drawing-room song, darling! 
 
 Sing toy the sunset's glow; 
 Now while the shadows are long, darling; 
 
 Now while the lights are low; 
 Something so chaste and coy, darling! 
 
 Something that melts the chest; 
 Milder than even Molloy, darling! 
 
 Better than Bingham's toest. 
 
 *^ 
 
 //L 
 
 Sing me a drawing-room song, darling! 
 
 Sing as you sang of yore, 
 Lisping of love that is strong, darling! 
 
 Strong as a big toarn-door; 
 Let the true knight toe toold, darling! 
 
 Let him arrive too late; 
 Stick in a toower of gold, darling! 
 
 Stick in a golden gate. 
 
 Sing me a drawing-room song, darling! 
 
 Bear on the angels' wings 
 Children that know no wrong, darling! 
 
 Little cherutoic things! 
 Sing of their sunny hair, darling! 
 
 Get them to die in June; 
 Wake, if you can, on the stair, darling! 
 
 Echoes of tiny shoon. 
 
 Sing me a drawing-room song, darling! 
 
 Sentiment may toe false, 
 Yet it will worry along, darling! 
 
 Set to a turn-turn valse; 
 
 18
 
 See that the verses are few, darling! 
 
 Keep to the rule of three; 
 That will be better for you, darling! 
 
 Certainly better for me. 
 
 Owen Seaman. 
 
 Laughter and Love 
 
 O Laughter, Love, delicious pair, 
 
 Together anything ye dare; 
 Then why doth Love put on the rue, 
 Or heartless Laughter ring untrue, 
 
 When hand in hand ye are so fair? 
 
 Gay Laughter takes from Love all care, 
 Dear Love makes Laughter sweet as dew; 
 The gods preserve you one, not two, 
 O Laughter, Love! 
 
 When Laughter loves, what mirth is there! 
 And when Love laughs, the heart 's laid bare! 
 When laughing Love goes forth to sue, 
 Or loving Laughter comes to woo, 
 What man or maid escapes your snare, 
 O Laughter, Love? 
 
 John Jarvis Holden. 
 
 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: 
 
 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
 
 And laugh, like parrots, at a bagpiper; 
 
 And others of such vinegar aspect, 
 
 That they '11 not show their teeth in way of smile 
 
 Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 19
 
 Father O'Flynn 
 
 Of priests we can offer a charmin' variety, 
 Far renowned for larnin' and piety; 
 Still, I 'd advance ye widout impropriety, 
 
 Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all. 
 Here 's a health to you, Father O'Flynn, 
 Slainte, and slain te, and slainte agin; 
 
 Powerfulest preacher, and 
 Tinderest teacher, and 
 Kindliest creature in ould Donegal. 
 
 Don't talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity, 
 Famous for ever at Greek and Latinity, 
 Faix and the divils and all at Divinity, 
 
 Father O'Flynn 'd make hares of them all! 
 Come, I vinture to give ye my word, 
 Niver the likes of his logic was heard, 
 
 Down from mythology 
 
 Into thayology, 
 Troth! and conchology if he 'd the call. 
 
 Och! Father O'Flynn you 've the wonderful way wid 
 
 you, 
 
 All ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you, 
 All the young childer are wild for to play wid you, 
 
 You 've such a way wid you, Father avick! 
 Still for all you 've so gintle a souL 
 Gad, you 've your flock in the grandest control; 
 
 Checkin' the crazy ones, 
 
 Coaxin' onaisy ones, 
 Lifting the lazy ones on wid the stick. 
 
 20
 
 And though quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity, 
 
 Still, at all seasons of innocent jollity, 
 
 Where was the play-boy could claim an equality 
 
 At comicality, Father, wid you? 
 Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, 
 Till this remark set him off wid the rest: 
 "Is it lave gayety 
 All to the laity? 
 Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?" 
 
 Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn, 
 Slainte, and slainte, and slainte agin; 
 
 Powerfulest preacher, and 
 
 Tinderest teacher, and 
 Kindliest creature in ould Donegal. 
 
 Alfred Perceval Graves. 
 
 ]J 
 
 The Cod 
 
 Some people like the cod because 
 
 He 's good to bake or boil, 
 But every child must love the fish 
 
 Who gives such pleasant oil. 
 
 When thrice a day mamma looks gay, 
 
 And holds the brimming cup, 
 Oh, don't you laugh and shout "hooray!" 
 
 And fly to snap it up! 
 
 John Joy Bell. 
 
 Laugh and be well. 
 
 Matthevr Greene. 
 21
 
 Lines to the Laughing Jackass 
 
 I come from busy haunts of men 
 
 With Nature to commune, 
 Which you, it seems, observe, and then 
 
 Laugh out like some buffoon. 
 
 You cease, and through the forest drear 
 
 I pace with sense of awe, 
 When once again upon my ear 
 
 Breaks in your harsh guffaw. 
 
 I look aloft, to yonder place 
 
 Where placidly you sit, 
 And tell you to your very face, 
 
 I do not like your wit. 
 
 I 'm in no mood for blatant jest, 
 
 I hate your mocking song, 
 My weary soul demands the rest 
 
 Denied to it so long. 
 
 Besides, there passes through my brain 
 
 The poet's love of fame 
 Why should not an Australian strain 
 
 Immortalize my name? 
 
 And so I pace the forest drear, 
 
 Filled with a sense of awe, 
 When louder still upon my ear 
 
 Breaks in your harsh guffaw. 
 
 Yet, truly, Jackass, it may be, 
 My words are all unjust: 
 
 22
 
 You laugh at what you hear and see, 
 And laugh because you must. 
 
 You 've seen Man, civilized and rude, 
 
 Of varying race and creed: 
 The black-skinned savage almost nude, 
 
 The Englishman in tweed. . . . 
 
 While you, from yonder lofty height, 
 
 Have studied human ways, 
 And with a satirist's delight 
 
 Dissected hidden traits. 
 
 Laugh on, laugh on! Your rapturous shout 
 
 Again on me intrudes; 
 But I have found your secret out, 
 
 O Cynic of the Woods. 
 
 Well! I confess, grim mocking elf, 
 
 Howe'er I rhapsodize, 
 That I am more in love with self 
 
 Than with the earth and skies. 
 
 So I will lay the epic by 
 
 That I had just begun; 
 Why should I scribble? Let me lie 
 
 And bask here in the sun. 
 
 And let me own, were I endowed 
 With your fine humorous sense, 
 I, too, should laugh aye, quite as loud, 
 At all Man's vain pretence. 
 
 Arthur Fatchett Martin. 
 23
 
 I f 
 
 M 
 
 Lines to Miss Florence Huntingdon 
 
 Sweet maiden of Passamaquoddy 
 
 Shall we seek for communion of souls 
 
 Where the deep Mississippi meanders 
 Or the distant Saskatchewan rolls? 
 
 Ah, no! for in Maine I will find thee 
 
 A sweetly sequestrated nook, 
 Where the far-winding Skoodoowabskooksis 
 
 Conjoins with the Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 There wander two beautiful rivers 
 With many a winding and crook; 
 
 The one is the Skoodoowabskooksis; 
 The other, the Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 Ah, sweetest of haunts! though unmentioned 
 
 In geography, atlas, or book, 
 How fair is the Skoodoowabskooksis 
 
 When joining the Skoodoowabskook! 
 
 Our cot shall be close by the waters, 
 
 Within that sequestrated nook, 
 Reflected by Skoodoowabskooksis, 
 
 And mirrored in Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 You shall sleep to the music of leaflets, 
 
 By zephyrs in wantonness shook, 
 To dream of the Skoodoowabskooksis 
 
 And, perhaps, of the Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 Your food shall be fish from the waters, 
 Drawn forth on the point of a hook, 
 24
 
 From murmuring Skoodoowabskooksis, 
 Or meandering Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 You shall quaff the most sparkling of waters, 
 Drawn forth from a silvery brook 
 
 Which flows to the Skoodowabskooksis, 
 And so to the Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 And you shall preside at the banquet, 
 And I shall wait on you as cook; 
 
 And we '11 talk of the Skoodoowabskooksis, 
 And sing of the Skoodoowabskook. 
 
 Let others sing loudly of Saco, 
 Of Quoddy and Tattamagouche, 
 
 Of Kenebeccasis and Quaco, 
 Of Merigoniche and Buctouche, 
 
 Of Nashwaak and Magaguadavique, 
 
 Or Memmerimammericook; 
 There 's none like the Skoodoowabskooksis, 
 
 Excepting the Skoodoowabskook! 
 
 The burden of an ancient rhyme 
 
 Is "By the forelock seize on Time." 
 
 Time in some corner heard it said; 
 
 Pricking his ears, away he fled; 
 
 And, seeing me upon the road, 
 
 A hearty curse on me bestowed. 
 
 "What if I do the same to thee? 
 
 How would thou like it?" thundered he, 
 
 And without answer thereupon 
 
 Seizing my forelock it was gone. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 25
 
 The King of Yvetot 
 
 There flourished once a potentate 
 
 Whom History does n*t name; 
 He rose at ten, retired at eight, 
 
 And snored unknown to Fame! 
 A night cap for his crown he wore, 
 
 A common cotton thing, 
 Which Jeanette to his bedside bore, 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 
 With four diurnal banquets he 
 
 His appetite allayed, 
 And on a jackass leisurely 
 
 His royal progress made. 
 No cumbrous state his steps would clog, 
 
 Fear to the winds he 'd fling; 
 His single escort was a dog, 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 
 He owned to only one excess 
 
 He doted on his glass; 
 But when a king gives happiness, 
 
 Why that, you see, will pass! 
 On every bottle, small or great, 
 
 For which he used to ring, 
 He laid n tax inordinate, 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 26
 
 Such crowds of pretty girls he found 
 
 Occasion to admire, 
 It gave his subjects double ground 
 
 For greeting him as Sire! 
 To shoot for cocoa-nuts he manned 
 
 His army every spring, 
 But all conscription sternly banned 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 
 He eyed no neighboring domain 
 
 With envy or with greed, 
 And, like a pattern sovereign, 
 
 Took Pleasure for his creed! 
 Yet 't was not, if aright I ween, 
 
 Until his life took wing, 
 His subjects saw that he had been 
 
 A jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 
 This worthy monarch, readers mine, 
 
 You even may now see 
 Embellishing a tavern-sign 
 
 Well known to you and me. 
 There, when the fete-day bottle flows, 
 
 Their bumpers they will bring, 
 And toast beneath his very nose 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 Ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha! 
 
 This jolly little king! 
 
 -William Toynbee, from the French of Beranger. 
 27
 
 The Ballade of Prose and Rhyme 
 
 When the roads are heavy with mire and rut, 
 In November fogs, in December snows, 
 
 When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut, 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose; 
 But whenever a scent from the whitehorn blows, 
 
 And the jasmine-stars to the casement climb, 
 And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows, 
 
 Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme! 
 
 When the brain gets dry as an empty nut, 
 When the reason stands on its squarest toes, 
 
 When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut," 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose; 
 But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows, 
 
 And the young year draws to the "golden prime," 
 And Sir Borneo sticks in his ear a rose, 
 
 Then hey! .for the ripple of laughing rhyme! 
 
 In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut 
 In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes," 
 
 In a starched procession of "If" and "But," 
 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose; 
 But whenever a soft glance softer grows, 
 
 And the light hours dance to the trysting-time, 
 And the secret is told "that no one knows," 
 
 Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme! 
 
 In the work-a-day world, for its needs and woes, 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose; 
 But whenever the May-bells clash and chime! 
 Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme! 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 28
 
 Scena 
 
 Cheerily carols the lark 
 
 Over the cot. 
 Merrily whistles the clerk 
 Scratching a blot. 
 But the lark 
 And the clerk, 
 I remark, 
 Comfort me not! 
 
 Over the ripening peach 
 
 Buzzes the bee. 
 Splash on the billowy beach 
 Tumbles the sea. 
 But the peach 
 And the beach 
 They are each 
 Nothing to me! 
 
 William Schwenck Gilbert. 
 
 As it 's give' me to perceive, 
 
 I most cert ' in 'y believe 
 
 When a man 's just glad plum through, 
 
 God 's pleased with him, same as you. 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley. 
 
 Laughter and song for my cheer, 
 
 Life is so fair. 
 None so happy as I 
 
 Anywhere; 
 
 Birds in the woods carol clear, 
 White clouds in the sky. 
 
 Dora Sigerson Shorter. 
 29
 
 Pierrot's Philosophy 
 
 Where are you going, dressed in white, 
 
 Pierrot, Pierrot, 
 Since Pierrette has deceived you quite? 
 
 Tira, tin, tira! 
 "I go to visit Columbine," 
 
 Said Pierrot, Pierrot, 
 "To mend this broken heart of mine. 
 
 Tira, tiri, tira!" 
 
 The story is not new, 
 
 It may apply to you; 
 If sweethearts will deceive, 
 
 Why, hang it, do not care; oh! hang it, do not grieve, 
 But imitate Pierrot. 
 
 If Columbine should jilt you, too, 
 
 Pierrot, Pierrot, 
 In heaven's name, what would you do? 
 
 Tira, tiri, tira! 
 "Then to another girl I '11 go," 
 
 Said Pierrot, Pierrot, 
 ' ' She surely will console Pierrot, 
 
 Tira, tiri, tira!" 
 
 The story is not new, 
 It may apply to you; 
 If sweethearts will deceive, 
 
 Why, hang it, do not care; oh! hang it, do not grieve, 
 But imitate Pierrot. 
 
 William Theodore Peters. 
 30
 
 From "Barney McGee" 
 
 Barney McGee, there 's no end of good luck in you, 
 Will-o'-the-wisp, with a flicker of Puck in you, 
 Wild as a bull-pup, and all of his pluck in you 
 
 Let a man tread on your coat and he '11 see! 
 Eyes like the lakes of Killarney for clarity, 
 Nose that turns up without any vulgarity, 
 Smile like a cherub, and hair that is carroty 
 Whoop you 're a rarity, Barney McGee! 
 Mellow as Tarragon, 
 Prouder than Aragon 
 Hardly a paragon, 
 
 You will agree 
 Here 's all that 's fine to you! 
 Books and old wine to you! 
 Girls be divine to you, 
 
 Barney McGee! . . . 
 
 Och, and the girls whose poor hearts you deracinate, 
 Whirl and bewilder and flutter and fascinate! 
 Faith, it 's so killing you are, you assassinate 
 
 Murder 's the word for you, Barney McGee! 
 Bold when they 're sunny, and smooth when they 're 
 
 showery 
 
 Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! 
 Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! 
 How would they silence you, Barney machree? 
 Naught can your gab allay, 
 Learned as Eabelais 
 You in his abbey lay 
 
 Once on the spree. 
 Here 's to the smile of you! 
 Oh, but the guile of you! 
 And a long while of you, 
 Barney McGee! 
 31
 
 Facile with phrases of length and Latinity, 
 
 Like honorificabilitudinity, 
 
 Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, 
 
 Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? 
 Then your vivacity and pertinacity 
 Carry the day with the divil's audacity; 
 No mere veracity robs your sagacity 
 Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. 
 When all is new to them, 
 What will you do to them? 
 Will you be true to them? 
 
 Who shall decree? 
 Here 's a fair strife to you! 
 Health and long life to you! 
 And a great wife to you, 
 Barney McGee! 
 
 Barney McGee, you 're the pick of gentility; 
 Nothing can phase you, you 've such a facility; 
 Nobody ever yet found your utility 
 
 There is the charm of you, Barney McGee; 
 Under conditions that others would stammer on, 
 Still undisturbed as a cat or a Cameron, 
 Polished as somebody in the Decameron, 
 
 Putting the glamour on prince or Pawnee. 
 In your meanderin', 
 Love and philanderin', 
 Calm as a mandarin 
 Sipping his tea! 
 Under the art of you, 
 Parcel and part of you, 
 Here 's to the heart of you, 
 Barney McGee! 
 
 32
 
 You who were ever alert to befriend a man, 
 You who were ever the first to defend a man, 
 You who had always the money to lend a man, 
 
 Down on his luck and hard up for a V! 
 Sure, you '11 be playing a harp in beatitude 
 And a quare sight you will be in that attitude 
 Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude, 
 You '11 find your latitude, Barney McGee. 
 That 's no flim-flam at all, 
 Frivol or sham at all, 
 Just the plain damn it all, 
 
 Have one with me! 
 Here 's one and more to you! 
 Friends by the score to you, 
 True to the core to you, 
 Barney McGee! 
 
 Richard Hovey. 
 
 I am not sad, and Laughter's cup 
 Oft comes to me. I drink it up, 
 In thankfulness that so much mirth 
 Should fall to one so long on earth; 
 And sometimes sit to muse again 
 Upon the laughter of us men: 
 How often for unworthy things 
 Against a startled sky it rings, 
 How often it is half a lie 
 To please the ape that 's standing by; 
 And yearn with all my heart for joy 
 Like that in laughter of a boy, 
 Who merely laughs because he must, 
 At simple things, in simple trust 
 All mirth, whole-hearted merriment, 
 As happy as 't is innocent. 
 
 Christopher Bannister. 
 33
 
 Thalia 
 
 Since first you crowned the rustic's vernal feast, 
 O muse! with laughter and your comic art, 
 And in the rural pastimes bore your part 
 With broadest jest and mirth that ay increased 
 
 Your sway has traveled from the classic East 
 To banter care, and fill the throbbing mart 
 Of tragic life with whims and quirks that start 
 The pulse to thrill with joy where joy had ceased. 
 
 Behold! To-day your crook and grinning mask 
 Are greeted as if royal tokens sent 
 To end the sordid soul's imprisonment 
 
 And gild with wit the plodder's weary task; 
 To make despair the laggard's scourge, at most, 
 And fortune's fiercest fling a futile boast. 
 
 Ray ClarktEose. 
 
 No baby has to learn to cry: 
 
 But Oh, how eagerly we try 
 
 To teach the little ones from birth 
 
 Smiles, laughter anything of mirth! 
 
 Christopher Bannister. 
 
 I fear I have a little turn for satire; 
 And yet, methinks, the older that one grows 
 Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter 
 Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. 
 
 George Lord Byron. 
 
 Better write of laughter than of tears; 
 Laughter is the natural function of man. 
 
 Frangois Eabelais. 
 34
 
 The Quarrel 
 
 Love and Laughter fall at outs: 
 Clouds grow heavy in the sky 
 And the sun is like to die 
 
 When Love 's glum and Laughter flouts. 
 
 Love went forth that day to woo 
 Laughter stayed at home to frown; 
 Love, once light as the thistledown, 
 
 Came again, most sad to view; 
 
 For the maiden he would see 
 
 Looked amazed, and turned away; 
 Where was Love, once blithe and gay, 
 
 In that face of misery? 
 
 Laughter to the damsel went: 
 She in wonder gazed at him, 
 Heard his voice grown harsh and grim 
 
 Sent him home again, forspent. 
 
 Laughter looked at Love, and sighed; 
 
 Love and Laughter gazed with tears; 
 
 Both dismissed their doubts and fears, 
 Made it up, and kissed and cried. 
 
 Hand in hand they now appear 
 Lives there lass in any lane 
 Who would dare deny the twain, 
 When Love 's gay and Laughter dear? 
 
 John Jarvis Holden. 
 35
 
 Vive la Bagatelle! 
 
 Sing a song of foolishness, laughing stocks and cranks! 
 The more there are the merrier, come and join the 
 
 ranks! 
 
 Life is dry and stupid; whoop her up a bit! 
 Donkeys live in clover; bray and throw a fit! 
 
 Take yourself in earnest, never stop to think, 
 Strut and swagger boldly, dress in red and pink; 
 Prate of stuff and nonsense, get yourself abused; 
 Some one 's got to play the fool to keep the crowd 
 amused! 
 
 Bully for the idot! Bully for the guy! 
 
 You could be a prig yourself, if you would only try! 
 
 Altruistic asses keep the fun alive; 
 
 Clowns are growing scarcer; hurry and arrive! 
 
 I seen a crazy critic a-writin' of a screed; 
 ' ' Tendencies ' ' and ' ' Unities ' ' Maeterlinck, indeed ! 
 He wore a paper collar, and his tie was up behind; 
 If that 's the test of Culture, then I 'm glad I 'm not 
 refined! 
 
 Let me laugh at you; then you can laugh at me; 
 Then we "11 josh together everything we see; 
 Every one 's a nincompoop to another's view; 
 Laughter makes the sun shine; Boop-de-doodle-doo! 
 
 Gelett Burgess. 
 
 And laughter oft is but an art 
 To drown the outcry of the heart. 
 
 Hartley Coleridge. 
 3G
 
 The Mask of Mirth 
 
 Ho! this is Mirth, fat-cheeked and laughing-eyed, 
 And wide of mouth where impish dimples lurk 
 In playful negligence content to shirk 
 The earnestness and sober sense of pride, 
 
 ' L-trs THAT- *rr o/ftpf 
 
 fi.cn. 
 
 In grins that ripple with content, and smirk 
 Of perfect joy or sly satiric quirk 
 That smacks of roguishness personified. 
 
 And is not this the best to make a jest 
 
 Of life, and sweep the veil of sorrow by; 
 
 To steep the soul in mirthful carelessness, 
 And turn unheeding ears to care's behest, 
 
 Ambition's strident caM, or sweet Love's sigh? 
 
 Ah, Mirth, a truce; that grin may mask distress. 
 
 Bay ClarkRose. 
 
 It May Be 
 
 It may be we shall know in the hereafter 
 Why we, begetting hopes, give birth to fears, 
 
 And why the world 's too beautiful for laughter, 
 Too beautiful for tears. 
 
 Percy Addleshaw. 
 
 Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, 
 
 And merrily hent the stile-a; 
 A merry heart goes all the day, 
 
 Your sad tires in a mile-a. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 37
 
 At Fontainebleau 
 
 It was a day of sun and rain, 
 
 Uncertain as a child's swift moods; 
 
 And I shall never spend again 
 So blithe a day among the woods. 
 
 Was it because the gods were pleased 
 That they were awful in our eyes, 
 
 Whom we in very deed appeased 
 With barley-cakes of sacrifice? 
 
 The forest knew her and was glad, 
 And laughed for very joy to know 
 
 Her child was with her; then, grown sad, 
 She wept, because her child must go. 
 
 And Alice, like a little Faun, 
 Went leaping over rocks and ferns, 
 
 Coursing the shadow-race from dawn 
 Until the twilight-flock returns. 
 
 And she would spy and she would capture 
 The shyest flower that lit the grass; 
 
 The joy I had to watch her rapture 
 Was keen as even her rapture was. 
 
 The forest knew her and was glad, 
 
 And laughed and wept for joy and woe. 
 This was the welcome that she had 
 Among the woods of Fontainebleau. 
 
 Arthur Symons. 
 38
 
 To Quenchless Laughter 
 
 Pan fathered thee, Thalia gave thee birth, 
 O quenchless Laughter, when Man first was sent 
 To strut his day, and give thy powers vent 
 That thou mightest part pretense from things of 
 worth; 
 
 Kin of thy blood are Happiness and Mirth, 
 
 Thou 'rt Joy's stout brother, twin to Merriment, 
 Wit's follower, comrade to Health and Content: 
 Long mayst thou live to shake the sober earth! 
 
 Folly's first foe and Pride's best enemy, 
 
 Of melancholy the unfailing cure, 
 
 And certain tonic for our daily smart, 
 Come Laughter, with Good Cheer and Jollity, 
 
 Man's Honest friend, welcome in every heart 
 
 To be both wealth and solace for the poor! 
 
 Wallace Eice. 
 
 The girl with dimples bless her soul! 
 
 How sweet she is at Mirth's alarm 
 In leaving Laughter, as a whole, 
 
 Not only Merriment, but Charm. 
 
 Oliver Marble. 
 
 Long before the college cheer 
 Caaie to vex the modern ear, 
 Laughter could a better show: 
 Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ho-ho! 
 
 John Jarvis Holden. 
 
 I had rather have a fool to make me merry, 
 Than experience to make me sad. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 39
 
 From "The Golfer's Rubaiyat" 
 
 Wake! for the sun has driven in equal flight 
 The stars before him from the Tee of Night, 
 And holed them every one without a miss, 
 Swinging at ease his gold-shod Shaft of Light. 
 
 Now the fresh Year, reviving old Desires, 
 The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, 
 
 Pores on this Club and That with anxious eye, 
 And dreams of Bounds beyond the Rounds of Liars. 
 
 Come, choose your Ball, and in the Fire of Spring 
 Your Eed Coat, and your wooden Putter fling; 
 
 The Club of Time has but a little while 
 To waggle, and the Club is on the swing. 
 
 Whether at Musselburgh or Shinnecock, 
 In motley Hose or humbler motley Sock, 
 
 The Cup of Life is ebbing Drop by Drop, 
 Whether the Cup be filled with Scotch or Bock. 
 
 A Bag of Clubs, a Silver-Town or two, 
 
 A Flask of Scotch, a Pipe of Shag and Thou 
 
 Beside me caddying in the Wilderness 
 Ah, Wilderness were Paradise enow. 
 
 Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
 Jamie and His, and heard great argument 
 
 Of Grip and Stance and Swing; but evermore 
 Found at the Exit but a Dollar spent. 
 
 40
 
 With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, 
 
 And with mine own hand sought to make it grow; 
 
 And this was all the Harvest that I reaped: 
 "You hold it This Way, and you swing it So." 
 
 The swinging Brassie strikes; and, having struck, 
 Moves on: nor all your Wit or future Luck 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a Stroke, 
 Nor from the Card a single Seven pluck. 
 
 And that inverted Ball they call the High 
 By which the Duffer thinks to live or die, 
 Lift not your hands to It for help, for it 
 As impotently froths as you or I. 
 
 I sometimes think that never springs so green 
 The Turf as where some Good Fellow has been, 
 
 And every emerald Stretch the Fair Green shows 
 His kindly Tread has known, his sure Play seen. 
 
 Yon rising Moon that leads us Home again, 
 How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; 
 
 How oft hereafter rising wait for us 
 At this same Turning and for One in vain. 
 
 And when, like her, my Golfer, I have been 
 And am no more above the pleasant Green, 
 
 And you in your mild Journey pass the Hole 
 I made in One ah! pay my Forfeit then! 
 
 Henry Walcott Boynton. 
 41
 
 Laughing Bill 
 
 I know a shiftless sort o' chap 
 
 Who never cares to work; 
 The only duties that he has 
 
 He always tries to shirk; 
 The few things he attempts to do 
 
 He does without much skill, 
 And yet, somehow, folks seem to like 
 
 And sometimes love old Bill. 
 
 He has no wife or chick or child, 
 
 He does not own a cent, 
 Nor home, nor clothes, worth speaking of; 
 
 And yet he seems content. 
 And what is better, everywhere 
 
 He takes contentment still, 
 For he is always laughing, and 
 
 They call him Laughing Bill. 
 
 There is n't anything you ask 
 
 Bill will not start to do; 
 He keeps you guessing all the time 
 
 But keeps you laughing, too. 
 And every hour of every day 
 
 We send for him, until 
 He is the busiest thing in town, 
 
 Old lazy Laughing Bill. 
 
 The children tag him all about; 
 
 He gives them from his store 
 Of useless things the things they love, 
 
 Till he can give no more, 
 
 42
 
 And then he starts to make them toys 
 
 With heariest good will 
 They 're never made; but then, he tries, 
 
 And laughs, and goes, old Bill! 
 
 The mothers love him, and the men 
 
 All smile to see him roun', 
 No one is half so popular 
 
 In all that blessed town. 
 He chases far away the tears 
 
 Of every Jack and Jill; 
 He laughs, and then they 're laughing, too, 
 
 At sight of Laughing Bill. 
 
 And I 've a notion when it comes 
 
 To doing good on earth, 
 The lantern- jaw may make things go, 
 
 However lacking mirth; 
 And yet and yet on the Great Day 
 
 I cannot think that ill 
 Is coming to that idle, shiftless, 
 
 Lazy Laughing Bill! 
 
 Oliver Marble. 
 
 A merrier man 
 
 Within the limits of becoming mirth, 
 I never spent an hour's talk withal: 
 His eye begets occasion for his wit; 
 For every object that the one doth catch, 
 The other turns to a mirth-loving jest. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 Laugh where we must, be candid where we can. 
 
 Alexander Pope. 
 43
 
 A Match 
 
 If love were what the rose is 
 
 And I were like the leaf, 
 Our lives would grow together 
 In sad or singing weather, 
 Blown fields or flowerful closes, 
 Green pleasure or gray grief; 
 If love were what the rose is, 
 And I were like the leaf. 
 
 If I were what the words are, 
 
 And love were like the tune, 
 With double sound and single 
 Delight our lips would mingle, 
 With kisses glad as birds are 
 
 That get sweet rain at noon; 
 If I were what the words are, 
 And love were like the tune. 
 
 H 
 
 If you were life, my darling, 
 
 And I your love were death, 
 We 'd shine and snow together 
 Ere March made sweet the weather 
 With daffodil and starling 
 
 And hours of fruitful breath; 
 If you were life, my darling, 
 And I your love were death. 
 
 If you were thrall to sorrow, 
 
 And I were page to joy, 
 We 'd play for lives and seasons 
 With loving looks and treasons 
 
 44
 
 And tears of night and morrow 
 And laughs of maid and boy; 
 
 If you were thrall to sorrow, 
 And I were page to joy. 
 
 If you were April's lady, 
 
 And I were lord in May, 
 We 'd throw with leaves for hours 
 And draw for days with flowers, 
 Till day like night were shady 
 
 And night were bright like day; 
 If you were April's lady, 
 
 And I were lord in May. 
 
 If you were queen of pleasure, 
 
 And I were king of pain, 
 We 'd hunt down love together, 
 Pluck out his flying feather, 
 And teach his feet a measure, 
 
 And find his mirth a rein; 
 If you were queen of pleasure, 
 
 And I were lord of pain. 
 
 Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
 
 Her smile was prodigal of summery shine, 
 Gayly persistent, like a morn in June 
 That laughs away the clouds, and up and down 
 Goes making merry with the ripening grain. 
 
 Margaret Junkin Preston. 
 
 Man laughs: 
 
 In youth because he knows no better; 
 
 In age because he knows so well. 
 
 Christopher Bannister. 
 45 
 
 ^)
 
 The Collaboration 
 
 The novelist (lady) was in despair 
 Hours and hours she 'd sat her there, 
 
 With one hand pressed 
 
 To her storm-tossed chest 
 
 And the other hand clutched in her brown back hair. 
 Her novel was finished, save Chapter Last; 
 All previous efforts had been surpassed; 
 
 But what to do 
 
 With the puppets who 
 Had danced to her fiddling she hardly knew. 
 
 Shall she marry Claude to the Lady Grey? 
 Or hash his hopes with a mincing Nay? 
 Shall she kill the villain, or let him stay 
 On earth that Remorse may on him prey? 
 
 And how about 
 
 The adventuress stout? 
 And the rakish Lord with a touch of gout? 
 
 And the ingenue 
 
 With the eyes so blue 
 What at the end shall this puppet do? 
 Thus she fingered the ends of her tangled plot 
 And pondered how she should untie the knot. 
 
 The more she pondered, the worse it got. 
 "I never," she cried, "shall undo this knot, 
 Unless by chance, 
 In a dream or trance, 
 I see the end of my great romance. 
 
 Till then," she said, with a mournful sigh, 
 46
 
 "To finish the novel I need not try." 
 
 And feeling the need 
 
 Of a little feed, 
 She ate the whole of a large mince pie. 
 
 She went to "bed with a heavy heart, 
 To awake betimes with a fearful start; 
 
 For on her chest, 
 
 Disturbing her rest, 
 Was a little old man in a purple vest. 
 
 "You find me here," 
 
 He remarked with a leer, 
 As he cocked his hat o'er his large left ear, 
 
 "To untie the knot 
 
 Of your wonderful plot; 
 
 For I know who 's who and I know what 's what. 
 You must marry Claude to the Lady Grey 
 And balk the villain of his prey. 
 The rakish Lord with a touch of gout 
 Must elope with the lady a trifle stout. 
 And a convent's walls must hide from view 
 The ingenue with the eyes so blue." 
 
 Then the little old man with the purple vest 
 Removed himself from the lady's chest, 
 
 And he vanished from view 
 
 Up the chimney flue, 
 As such queer people are wont to do. 
 
 The lady came out of her mince-pie trance 
 And wrote the end of her great romance. 
 
 
 Oh, I am stabbed with laughter. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 47
 
 Lilian 
 
 Airy, fairy Lilian, 
 Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
 When I ask her if she love me, 
 Clasps her tiny hands above me, 
 
 Laughing all she can; 
 She '11 not tell me if she love me, 
 Cruel little Lilian. 
 
 When my passion seeks 
 Pleasance in love-sighs, 
 She, looking through and through me 
 Thoroughly to undo me, 
 
 Smiling, never speaks: 
 So innocent-arch, so cunning simple, 
 From beneath her gathered wimple 
 Glancing with black-beaded eyes, 
 Till the lightning laughters dimple 
 The baby-roses in her cheeks; 
 Then away she flies. 
 
 Prithee weep, May Lilian! 
 Gayety without eclipse 
 
 Wearieth me, May Lilian: 
 Through my very heart it thrilleth 
 
 When from crimson-threaded lips 
 Silver laughter trilleth: 
 
 Prithee weep, May Lilian. 
 
 Pray all I can, 
 
 If prayers^will not hush thee, 
 Airy Lilian, 
 48
 
 Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, 
 Fairy Lilian. 
 
 Alfred Lord Tennyson 
 
 There is a garden in her face, 
 Where roses and white lilies grow; 
 
 A heavenly paradise is that place, 
 Wherein all pleasant fruits do show. 
 
 There cheries grow, which none may buy 
 
 Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry. 
 
 Those cherries fairly do enclose 
 
 Of orient pearls a double row; 
 Which, when her lovely laughter shows, 
 
 They look like rosebuds filled with snow. 
 Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy 
 Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry. 
 
 Her eyes like angels watch them still; 
 
 Her brows like bended bows do stand, 
 Threatening with piercing frowns to kill 
 
 All that attempt, with eye or hand, 
 Those sacred cherries to come nigh 
 Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry. 
 
 Thomas Campion. 
 
 The bubble winked at me, and said, 
 
 "You '11 miss me, brother, when I 'm dead." 
 
 Oliver Herf ord. 
 
 Laugh if you are wise. 
 
 Marcus Valerius Martialis. 
 
 49
 
 Ballade of the Comic Muse 
 
 Hail! mistress of the merry tongue, 
 Of lively wit and laughing mood; 
 
 Gay queen of humor, ever young; 
 Withal full of solicitude 
 To ease life's worst vicissitude 
 
 By some sage jest or subtle ruse 
 Of rhyme to teach us not to brood 
 
 When we may court thee, Comic Muse! 
 
 Since ancient Horace gibed and flung 
 
 His verses at Rome's feet, the crude 
 Conceits of time quaint bards have sung 
 
 To make dismay a platitude 
 
 And give a wider latitude 
 To joyousness; for who would choose 
 
 The worries of life's endless feud 
 When we may court the Comic Muse? 
 
 No; let us rather lounge among 
 
 Byways obscure, and thus elude 
 The striving hordes whose gains arj wrung 
 
 From tortured lives and servitude. 
 
 If fate is harsh and times are rude, 
 To best resist have nought to lose; 
 When we may court the Comic Muse? 
 
 Muse, lest ambition should delude, 
 Be gracious, nor our suit refuse; 
 
 For mirth shall every ill exclude 
 When we may court thee, Comic Muse! 
 
 Bay Clark Eose. 
 
 50
 
 I Only Laugh 
 
 I only laugh at the invidious grin 
 With which the goat- faced herd at me do stare; 
 I laugh, too, at the foxes, who with bare 
 Gaunt paunches sniff and gape, all hunge-thin. 
 
 I laugh, too, at the apes that look so wise, 
 And swell themselves to arbiters of thought; 
 I laugh, too, at the craven good-for-nought, 
 Who with his poisoned steel in ambush lies. 
 
 For when Good Fortune's wreath of Life's best 
 
 flowers 
 
 Is smitten by the hand of adverse Fate, 
 And shattered at our feet lies all forlorn, 
 And when the heart within the breast is torn, 
 Torn, broken, cleft in twain and desolate, 
 Why, shrill, ironic laughter still is ours! 
 
 From the German of Heine. 
 
 Laugh and grow fat; 
 
 Frown and be thin: 
 When you know that, 
 Laugh and grow fat, 
 Tie your cravat 
 
 Bound double chin: 
 Laugh and grow fat; 
 
 Frown and be thin. 
 
 Oliver Marble. 
 
 What then remains, but well our power to use, 
 And keep good humor still, whatever we lose? 
 And trust me, dear, good humor can prevail 
 When airs, and flights, and screams and scolding fail. 
 
 Alexander Pope.
 
 Time's Little Joke 
 
 First you 're born and I '11 be bound you 
 Find a dozen strangers round you. 
 "Hallo," cries the new-born baby, 
 "Where 's my parents? which may they be?" 
 
 Awkward silence no reply 
 
 Puzzled baby wonders why! 
 Father rises, bows politely 
 Mother smiles (but not too brightly) 
 Doctor mumbles like a dumb thing 
 Nurse is busy mixing something. 
 
 Every symptom tends to show 
 
 You 're decidedly de trop 
 
 You grow up, and you discover 
 What it is to be a lover. 
 Some young lady is selected 
 Poor, perhaps, but well-connected, 
 
 Whom you hail (for Love is blind) 
 
 As the queen of fairy kind. 
 Though she 's plain perhaps unsightly, 
 Makes her face up laces tightly, 
 In her form your fancy traces 
 All the gifts of all the graces. 
 
 Rivals none the maiden woo, 
 
 So you take her and she takes you! 
 
 Ten years later Time progresses 
 Sours your temper thins your tresses; 
 Fancy, then, her chin relaxes; 
 Bates are facts and so are taxes. 
 
 Fairy Queen 's no longer young 
 
 Fairy Queen has got a tongue. 
 
 52
 
 Twins have probably intruded 
 Quite unbidden just as you did 
 They 're a source of care and trouble 
 Just as you were only double. 
 
 Comes at last the final stroke 
 
 Time has had his little joke! 
 
 William Schwenck Gilbert. 
 
 When My Love Laughs 
 
 When my Love laughs, the prettiest dimples grow 
 Upon her cheeks, and rippling rillets flow 
 
 From her sweet lips to prove the sweetest mirth, 
 And lips are parted for those pearls, whose worth 
 Sultan and Shah do not so much as know; 
 
 And all about the^tenderest roses blow 
 The loveliest blossoms mortals see below 
 Methinks all roses there must have their birth 
 When my Love laughs. 
 
 And, more than this, the day begins to glow 
 The birds to sing, and radiant Dawn to strow 
 Her roses over all the gladdened earth 
 Bloomed e'er such joy within such tiny girth? 
 For surely Heaven no merrier sight can show 
 When my Love laughs! 
 
 John Jarvis Holden. 
 
 If I laugh at any mortal thing 
 'T is that I may not weep. 
 
 George Lord Byron. 
 53
 
 The Village Epicurean 
 
 Take note of this, ye gentry who 
 
 Your self-made sorrows mourn! 
 Unblest with even a single sou 
 
 Blithe Pierre le Gros was born; 
 At ease to live, eschewing fame, 
 
 Of discontent the foe 
 Such, sirs, the modest end and aim 
 
 Of jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 A hat the product, you'd suppose, 
 
 Of his great-grandsire's day 
 With ivy now, and now with rose 
 
 Perennially gay! 
 A suit of sacking, first possessed 
 
 Some twenty years ago 
 Such, sirs, the wardrobe at its best 
 
 Of jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 A pack of cards, a flageolet, 
 
 A table, an old bed, 
 An empty chest, a silhouette 
 
 His sweetheart's, be it said; 
 A jug which Providence takes care 
 
 Shall never cease to flow 
 Such, sirs, the utmost wealth can spare 
 
 To jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 Instructor to the little folk 
 In games of every kind, 
 
 Profuse with pleasantry and joke 
 More racy than refined; 
 54
 
 In country dance and catch and glee 
 His knowledge prompt to show 
 
 Such, sirs, the whole proficiency 
 Of jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 Since costly brands he cannot get, 
 
 Content with common wine, 
 Preferring chubby-cheeked Nanette 
 
 To damsels superfine; 
 With loving-kindness brimming o'er, 
 
 With harmless mirth aglow 
 Such, sirs, the philosophic lore 
 
 Of jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 Humbly to fall upon his knees 
 
 And to his Father say: 
 "Pardon me if my life displease 
 
 By being a thought too gay; 
 I ask but till the end to share 
 
 The bliss that now I know." 
 Such, sirs, the unpretending prayer 
 
 Of jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 
 Ye Poor, who filled with envy fret, 
 
 Ye Rich, whose pleasures pall, 
 Ye Great, who, striving more to get, 
 
 Too oft are stripped of all; 
 Ye Kings, who see your crowns depart, 
 
 Your dynasties laid low, 
 A lesson learn and learn by heart 
 
 From jolly Pierre le Gros! 
 William Toynbee, from the French of Beranger. 
 
 55
 
 Ballade of the Merry Bard 
 
 Though through the cloudy ranks of morn 
 
 The Sun-god sends no golden ray, 
 Though swift along the air are borne 
 
 The feathery shafts that none may stay; 
 
 Though wrathful storm-blasts pangless slay, 
 And wan the patient plodder rues 
 
 His lonely lot each dagging day 
 He 's gay who courts the merry muse! 
 
 When down the fields the tender corn 
 Upsprings, and sees blue skies in May, 
 
 When budding blooms the boughs adorn, 
 And flowers bespangle sprig and spray, 
 When torrid summer's regnant sway 
 
 Has dimmed the foliage's fairest hues, 
 And bronzed reapers house the hay 
 
 He 's gay who courts the merry muse! 
 
 And when the hollow harvest horn 
 
 O'erflows with autumn's rich display, 
 When high, with goodly grain, new-shorn, 
 
 Is piled each lofty granary, 
 
 When, like dark moons amid the gray 
 Of cornfields, where the red ear woos, 
 
 The pumpkins lie in long array 
 He 's gay who courts the merry muse! 
 
 Prince, e'en though Fortune go astray 
 And lost is wealth's bright-shining cruse, 
 
 Though dark and drear the weary way 
 He 's gay who courts the merry muse. 
 
 Clinton Scollard. 
 
 56
 
 The Tables Turned 
 
 Every happy thing on earth 
 
 Comes to crown our mortal birth; 
 
 Roses red, and azure sky, 
 
 Violets, and the day's eye, 
 
 Singing maid, and whistling boy, 
 
 Birds with many a burst of joy, 
 
 Meadows that the sunlight dapples, 
 
 Golden pears, and ruddy apples, 
 
 Forest leaves in bright autumn, 
 
 Aster, and chrysanthemum, 
 
 Sapphire shadows on the snow, 
 
 Frost flowers on the cold window, 
 
 Youth, and dainty maidens' kisses, 
 
 Smiles and dimples, fragrant tresses, 
 
 Love, and al\ a lover's blisses. 
 
 All have happiness, of course, 
 
 Which the poet sings perforce 
 
 In some poem large or small, 
 
 Epic, sonnet, madrigal, 
 
 Summing up, in his good leisure, 
 
 All he thinks we know of pleasure; 
 
 Yet neglected, quite unsung, 
 
 Standeth one of blither tongue, 
 
 And, when he has sung of these 
 
 Lo! a sound of revelries! 
 
 Eyes half closed, and shaking side, 
 
 Gasping breath, lips parted wide, 
 
 Loud resounding to the rafter, 
 
 Hear hale, hearty, thoughtless Laughter! 
 
 And, although he may not know it, 
 
 Laughter 's laughing at the poet! 
 
 Wallace Rice. 
 
 57
 
 The Laughing Satyr 
 
 Thou woodland dweller of elusive Greece, 
 
 Thou laughing Satyr of the days of Pan, 
 Who caught thee from thy freedom and thy peace 
 
 And made thee thrall to dull prosaic man? 
 
 What demon huge beside thee nimbly ran 
 With horrid eyes that chilled thee into stone, 
 
 Froze all thy mirth as only demons can, 
 Checked thy gay blood, and made his very own 
 Thy laughter and thy song, and left thee thus alone? 
 
 Most lonesome wight, 't is twice a thousand years 
 Since those crisp leaves that bind thy marble brow 
 
 From tree were torn and shed their fragrant tears; 
 Yea, twice a thousand years engulf thee now 
 From that glad time and from the myrtle bough 
 
 From high Arcadian woods, and from that gaze 
 Which stilled the heart that never questioned how. 
 
 So suddenly were darkened thy bright ways, 
 
 So swiftly blotted out those dear delightful days. 
 
 Oh, long ago thy comrades fled the earth 
 
 And all the gods departed long ago. 
 Couldst thou this hour regain thy wonted mirth, 
 
 No haunt, no face were found that thou wouldst 
 know; 
 
 No songs are sung, the graves are mossed with woe, 
 The streams are nymphless, and the ruby morn 
 
 Sets no fair sylvan temple all aglow; 
 The fields are dreamless, and the hills forlorn; 
 Sweet echoes tease no more, nor is one satyr born. 
 58
 
 Laugh on, laugh on in ignorance of change, 
 
 For ever keep those lips remembering 
 Their mirth, those eyes their loves, nor think it strange. 
 
 The dryads them dost see will endless sing, 
 
 The bloom be bloom for ever, and the spring 
 Flood thy glad fields with fragrance and with light 
 
 To farthest time, nor any joy take wing. 
 Yet they are gone, all gone into the night 
 Of countless yesterdays, beyond the misty height. 
 
 Live on, laugh on in white unchanging stone; 
 
 'T is better so than that thy heart shouldst wake 
 Unto the blow that thou art left alone. 
 
 A time may come when wearied earth shall take 
 
 Her leafy path again, and men forsake 
 Their mad designs; till then, cold marble be! 
 
 A face of laughter flouting grief and ache, 
 An eye intent upon the wind and free, 
 A heart as light as any wind in Arcady. 
 
 Charles G. Blanden. 
 
 Why We Laugh 
 
 We laugh at what? 
 At anything that goes awry; 
 
 Because our woes are part forgot; 
 Because 't is better than to sigh; 
 
 We laugh at what 
 We cannot help our common lot, 
 Even because we 're going to die; 
 
 Because we 'd rather laugh than not: 
 These seem to be some reasons why 
 We laugh at What? 
 
 Oliver Marble. 
 50
 
 Jocosa Lyra 
 
 In our hearts is the great one of Avon 
 
 Engraven, 
 
 And we climb the cold summits once built on 
 
 By Milton. 
 
 But at times not the air that is rarest 
 
 Is fairest, 
 
 And we long in the valley to follow 
 
 Apollo. 
 
 Then we drop from the heights atmospheric 
 
 To Herrick, 
 
 Or we pour the Greek honey, grown blander. 
 
 Of Land or; 
 
 Or our cosiest nook in the shade is 
 
 Where Praed is, 
 
 Or we toss the light balls of the mocker 
 
 With Locker. 
 
 Oh, the song where not one of the Graces 
 
 Tight-laces, 
 
 Where we woo the sweet Muses not starchlVj 
 
 But archly, 
 
 Where the verse, like a piper a-Maying, 
 
 Comes playing, 
 
 And the rhyme is as gay as a dancer 
 
 In answer, 
 
 It will last till men weary of pleasure 
 
 In measure! 
 60
 
 It will last till men weary of laughter . . . 
 
 And after! 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 The Loons 
 
 Once ye were happy, once by many a shore, 
 Wherever Glooscap's gentle feet might stray, 
 Lulled by his presence like a dream, ye lay 
 Floating at rest; but that was long of yore. 
 
 He was too good for earthly men; he bore 
 Their bitter deeds for many a patient day, 
 And then at last he took his unseen way. 
 He was your friend, and ye might rest no more: 
 
 And now, though many hundred altering years 
 Have passed, among the desolate northern meres 
 Still must ye search and wander querulously, 
 
 Crying for Glooscap, still bemoan the light 
 With weird entreaties, and in agony 
 With awful laughter pierce the lonely night. 
 
 Archibald Lampman. 
 
 In the vain laughter of folly 
 Wisdom hears half its applause. 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
 It is good 
 To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 'T is over common 
 That men are merriest when they are from home. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 61
 
 d 
 
 m 
 
 Laughter and Death 
 
 There is no laughter in the natural world 
 Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt 
 Of their futurity to them unfurled 
 Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout. 
 
 The lion roars his solemn thunder out 
 To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry. 
 Even the lark must strain a serious throat 
 To hurl his blest defiance at the sky. 
 
 Fear, anger, jealousy have found a voice. 
 
 Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell. 
 
 Nature has symbols for her nobler joys, 
 Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell 
 
 That only man, by some sad mockery. 
 
 Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die. 
 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. 
 
 Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least. 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 2
 
 Acknowledgment 
 
 The thanks of the compilers are due to Mr. Charles 
 G. Blanden for courteous permission to include herein 
 "Eigadoon" and "The Laughing Satyr"; to Mr. Ge- 
 lett Burgess for "Vive la Bagatelle!"; to Messrs. 
 Small, Maynard & Company for the late Richard 
 Hovey's "Barney McGee"; to Mr. James Whit- 
 comb Riley and Messrs. The Bobbs-Merrill Com- 
 pany, owners of the copyright, for "Laughter Hold- 
 ing Both His Sides" and the quatrain used; to Mr. 
 Henry Walcott Boynton and Mr. Herbert S. Stone 
 for extracts from "The Golfer's Eubaiyat"; to Mr. 
 Ray Clarke Rose for "Thalia", "The Mask of Mirth" 
 and "Ballade of the Comic Muse" ; and to Messrs. John 
 Jarvis Holden and Oliver Marble for many favors.
 
 The Little Book Series 
 
 Edited and Compiled 
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 Love 
 
 Kisses 
 
 Friendship 
 
 Brides 
 
 Sports 
 
 Out-of-Doors 
 
 Cheer 
 
 Lullabies 
 
 Laughter 
 
 Limericks 
 
 School-Days 
 
 Bohemia 
 
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