I
BANTER

THE PLAYED-OUT HUMOURIST

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 shoutAnd 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!
W. S. Gilbert.

THE PRACTICAL JOKER

Oн, what a fund of joy jocund lies hid in harmless
hoaxes!

What keen enjoyment springs

From cheap and simple things!

What deep delight from sources trite inventive
humour coaxes,

That pain and trouble brew

For every one but you!

Gunpowder placed inside its waist improves a mild
Havana,

Its unexpected flash

Burns eyebrows and moustache.

When people dine no kind of wine beats ipecacuanha,
But common sense suggests

You keep it for your guests—

Then naught annoys the organ boys like throwing
red hot coppers.

And much amusement bides

In common butter slides;

And stringy snares across the stairs cause unexpected
croppers.

Coal scuttles, recollect,

Produce the same effect.

A man possessed

Of common sense

Need not invest

At great expense

The Practical Joker

It does not call

For pocket deep,

These jokes are all

Extremely cheap.

If you commence with eighteenpence-it's all you'll have to pay;

You may command a pleasant and a most instructive day.

A good spring gun breeds endless fun, and makes men jump like rockets

And turnip heads on posts

Make very decent ghosts.

Then hornets sting like anything, when placed in waistcoat pockets

Burnt cork and walnut juice

Are not without their use.

No fun compares with easy chairs whose seats are stuffed with needles

Live shrimps their patience tax

When put down people's backs.

Surprising, too, what one can do with a pint of fat black beetles

And treacle on a chair

Will make a Quaker swear!

Then sharp tin tacks

And pocket squirts

And cobbler's wax

For ladies' skirts

And slimy slugs

On bedroom floors

And water jugs

On open doors

Prepared with these cheap properties, amusing

tricks to play

Upon a friend a man may spend a most delightful

day.

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W. S. Gilbert.

TO PHOEBE

GENTLE, modest little flower,
Sweet epitome of May,

Love me but for half an hour,
Love me, love me, little fay."
Sentences so fiercely flaming
In your tiny, shell-like ear,
I should always be exclaiming
If I loved you, Phœbe dear.

"Smiles that thrill from any distance Shed upon me while I sing! Please ecstaticize existence,

Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!"
Words like these, outpouring sadly,
You'd perpetually hear,

If I loved you fondly, madly;-
But I do not, Phœbe dear.

W. S. Gilbert.

MALBROUCK

MALBROUCK, the prince of commanders,
Is gone to the war in Flanders;
His fame is like Alexander's;

But when will he come home?

Perhaps at Trinity Feast, or

Perhaps he may come at Easter.

Egad! he had better make haste, or

We fear he may never come.

For Trinity Feast is over,

And has brought no news from Dover;

And Easter is past, moreover,

And Malbrouck still delays.

Malbrouck

Milady in her watch-tower
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not well knowing why or how her
Dear lord from England stays.

While sitting quite forlorn in
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,
With fainting steps and slow.

"O page, prithee, come faster!
What news do you bring of your master?
I fear there is some disaster,

Your looks are so full of woe."

"The news I bring, fair lady,"
With sorrowful accent said he,
"Is one you are not ready
So soon, alas! to hear.

"But since to speak I'm hurried,"
Added this page, quite flurried,
"Malbrouck is dead and buried!"
(And here he shed a tear.)

"He's dead! he's dead as a herring!
For I beheld his 'berring,'

And four officers transferring
His corpse away from the field.

One officer carried his sabre,
And he carried it not without labour,
Much envying his next neighbour,
Who only bore a shield.

"The third was helmet-bearerThat helmet which on its wearer Filled all who saw with terror,

And covered a hero's brains.

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