XD S BD S V IN BA

Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,

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'll miss me, brother, when I'm dead.''

Laugh if you are wise.

- Marcus Valerius Martialis.

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 are wrung
From tortured lives and servitule.

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!

- Ray Clark Rose.

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 hunger-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.

What then remains, but well our power to use,
And keep good humor still, whate'er we lose?

And trust me, dear, good humor can prevail

When airs, and flights, and screams and scolding fail.

Time's Little Joke

First you 're born-and I'll 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;

Rates are facts and so are taxes.

Fairy Queen 's no longer young
Fairy Queen has got a tongue.

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!