Book of Humorous Verse

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• Publisher: The Floating Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781776531431
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Think all poetry is depressing, somber, and difficult to comprehend? If so, The Book of Humorous Verse is here to set you straight. This collection of witty sonnets, odes, and limericks is the perfect way to decompress with a belly laugh or two, even when you have just a few minutes to spare. Whether you're a long-time poetry fan or a newcomer to the genre, you'll come away with a newfound appreciation for sublimely silly verse.

Table of contents

• THE BOOK OF HUMOROUS VERSE
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• I - BANTER
• The Played-Out Humourist
• The Practical Joker
• To Phœbe
• Malbrouck
• Mark Twain: A Pipe Dream
• From a Full Heart
• The Ultimate Joy
• Old Fashioned Fun
• When Moonlike Ore the Hazure Seas
• When the Frost is on the Punkin
• Two Men
• A Familiar Letter to Several Correspondents
• The Height of the Ridiculous
• Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe
• A Rondelay
• Winter Dusk
• Comic Miseries
• Early Rising
• To the Pliocene Skull
• Ode to Work in Springtime
• Old Stuff
• To Minerva
• The Legend of Heinz Von Stein
• The Truth About Horace
• Propinquity Needed
• In the Catacombs
• Our Native Birds
• The Prayer of Cyrus Brown
• Erring in Company
• Cupid
• If We Didn't Have to Eat
• To My Empty Purse
• The Birth of Saint Patrick
• Her Little Feet
• School
• The Millennium
• "Exactly so"
• Companions
• The Schoolmaster
• A Appeal for Are to the Sextant of the Old Brick Meetinouse
• Cupid's Darts
• A Plea for Trigamy
• The Pope
• All at Sea
• Ballad of the Primitive Jest
• Villanelle of Things Amusing
• How to Eat Watermelons
• A Vague Story
• His Mother-In-Law
• On a Deaf Housekeeper
• Homœopathic Soup
• Some Little Bug
• On the Downtown Side of an Uptown Street
• Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos
• The Fisherman's Chant
• Report of an Adjudged Case
• Prehistoric Smith
• Song
• Lying
• Strictly Germ-Proof
• The Lay of the Lover's Friend
• Man's Place in Nature
• The New Version
• Amazing Facts About Food
• Transcendentalism
• A "Caudal" Lecture
• Salad
• Nemesis
• "Mona Lisa"
• The Siege of Djklxprwbz
• Rural Bliss
• An Old Bachelor
• Song
• The Quest of the Purple Cow
• St. Patrick of Ireland, My Dear!
• The Irish Schoolmaster
• Reflections on Cleopathera's Needle
• The Origin of Ireland
• As to the Weather
• The Twins
• II - THE ETERNAL FEMININE
• He and She
• The Kiss
• The Courtin'
• Hiram Hover
• Blow Me Eyes!
• First Love
• What is a Woman Like?
• Mis' Smith
• Triolet
• Bessie Brown, M.D.
• A Sketch from the Life
• Minguillo's Kiss
• A Kiss in the Rain
• The Love-Knot
• Over the Way
• Chorus of Women
• The Widow Malone
• The Smack in School
• 'späcially Jim
• Kitty of Coleraine
• Why Don't the Men Propose?
• A Pin
• The Whistler
• The Cloud
• Constancy
• Ain't it Awful, Mabel?
• Wing Tee Wee
• Phyllis Lee
• The Sorrows of Werther
• The Unattainable
• Rory O'More; or, Good Omens
• A Dialogue from Plato
• Dora Versus Rose
• Tu Quoque
• Nothing to Wear
• My Mistress's Boots
• Mrs. Smith
• A Terrible Infant
• Susan
• "I Didn't Like Him"
• My Angeline
• Nora's Vow
• Husband and Heathen
• The Lost Pleiad
• The New Church Organ
• Larrie O'Dee
• No Fault in Women
• A Cosmopolitan Woman
• Courting in Kentucky
• Any One Will Do
• A Bird in the Hand
• The Belle of the Ball
• The Retort
• Behave Yoursel' Before Folk
• The Chronicle: A Ballad
• Buxom Joan
• Oh, My Geraldine
• The Parterre
• How to Ask and Have
• Sally in Our Alley
• False Love and True Logic
• Pet's Punishment
• Ad Chloen, M.A.
• Chloe, M.A.
• The Fair Millinger
• Two Fishers
• Maud
• Are Women Fair?
• The Plaidie
• Feminine Arithmetic
• Lord Guy
• Sary "Fixes Up" Things
• The Constant Cannibal Maiden
• Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles
• Under the Mistletoe
• The Broken Pitcher
• Gifts Returned
• III - LOVE AND COURTSHIP
• Noureddin, the Son of the Shah
• The Usual Way
• The Way to Arcady
• My Love and My Heart
• Quite by Chance
• The Nun
• The Chemist to His Love
• Categorical Courtship
• Lanty Leary
• The Secret Combination
• Forty Years After
• Cupid
• Paring-Time Anticipated
• Why
• The Sabine Farmer's Serenade
• I Hae Laid a Herring in Saut
• The Clown's Courtship
• Out Upon It
• Love is Like a Dizziness
• The Kitchen Clock
• Lady Mine
• Ballade of the Golfer in Love
• Ballade of Forgotten Loves
• IV - SATIRE
• A Ballade of Suicide
• Finnigin to Flannigan
• Study of an Elevation, in Indian Ink
• The V-A-S-E
• Miniver Cheevy
• The Recruit
• Officer Brady
• Post-Impressionism
• To the Portrait of "a Gentleman,"
• Cacoëthes Scribendi
• Contentment
• A Boston Lullaby
• A Grain of Salt
• Song
• A Philosopher
• The Meeting of the Clabberhuses
• The Ideal Husband to His Wife
• Distichs
• The Hen-Roost Man
• If They Meant All They Said
• The Man
• A Thought
• The Musical Ass
• The Knife-Grinder
• St. Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes
• The Battle of Blenheim
• The Three Black Crows
• To the Terrestrial Globe
• Etiquette
• A Modest Wit
• The Latest Decalogue
• A Simile
• By Parcels Post
• All's Well that Ends Well
• The Contrast
• The Devonshire Lane
• A Splendid Fellow
• If
• Accepted and Will Appear
• The Little Vagabond
• Sympathy
• The Religion of Hudibras
• Holy Willie's Prayer
• The Learned Negro
• True to Poll
• Trust in Women
• The Literary Lady
• Twelve Articles
• All-Saints
• How to Make a Man of Consequence
• On a Magazine Sonnet
• Paradise
• The Friar of Orders Gray
• Of a Certain Man
• Clean Clara
• Christmas Chimes
• The Ruling Passion
• The Pope and the Net
• An Actor
• The Lost Spectacles
• That Texan Cattle Man
• Fable
• Hoch! Der Kaiser
• What Mr. Robinson Thinks
• The Candidate's Creed
• The Razor Seller
• The Devil's Walk on Earth
• Father Molloy
• The Owl-Critic
• What Will We Do?
• Life in Laconics
• On Knowing When to Stop
• Rev. Gabe Tucker's Remarks
• Thursday
• Sky-Making
• The Positivists
• Martial in London
• The Splendid Shilling
• After Horace
• Of a Precise Tailor
• Money
• Boston Nursery Rhymes
• Kentucky Philosophy
• John Grumlie
• A Song of Impossibilities
• Song
• The Oubit
• Double Ballade of Primitive Man
• Phillis's Age
• V - CYNICISM
• Good and Bad Luck
• Bangkolidye
• Pensées de Noël
• A Ballade of an Anti-Puritan
• Pessimism
• Cynical Ode to an Ultra-Cynical Public
• Youth and Art
• Bachelor's Dream
• All Things Except Myself I Know
• The Joys of Marriage
• The Third Proposition
• The Ballad of Cassandra Brown
• What's in a Name?
• Too Late
• The Annuity
• K. K.—Can't Calculate
• Northern Farmer
• Fin de Siécle
• Then Ag'in
• The Pessimist
• Without and Within
• Same Old Story
• VI - EPIGRAMS
• Woman's Will
• Cynicus to W. Shakespeare
• Senex to Matt Prior
• To a Blockhead
• The Fool and the Poet
• A Rhymester
• Giles's Hope
• Cologne
• An Eternal Poem
• On a Bad Singer
• Job
• Reasons for Drinking
• Smatterers
• Hypocrisy
• To Doctor Empiric
• A Remedy Worse than the Disease
• A Wife
• The Honey-Moon
• Dido
• An Epitaph
• On Taking a Wife
• Upon Being Obliged to Leave a Pleasant Party from the Want of a Pair of Breeches to Dress for Dinner In
• Some Ladies
• On a Sense of Humour
• On Hearing a Lady Praise a Certain Rev. Doctor's Eyes
• Epitaph Intended for His Wife
• To a Capricious Friend
• Which is Which
• On a Full-Length Portrait of Beau Marsh Placed Between the Busts of Newton and Pope
• On Scotland
• Mendax
• To a Slow Walker and Quick Eater
• What's My Thought Like?
• Of All the Men
• On Butler's Monument
• A Conjugal Conundrum
• VII - BURLESQUE
• Lovers and a Reflection
• Our Hymn
• "Soldier, Rest!"
• Imitation
• The Mighty Must
• Midsummer Madness
• Mavrone
• Lilies
• For I Am Sad
• A Little Swirl of Vers Libre
• Young Lochinvar
• Imagiste Love Lines
• Bygones
• Justice to Scotland
• Lament of the Scotch-Irish Exile
• A Song of Sorrow
• The Rejected "National Hymns"
• The Editor's Wooing
• The Cantelope
• Popular Ballad: "Never Forget Your Parents"
• How a Girl was Too Reckless of Grammar
• Behold the Deeds!
• Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves
• Culture in the Slums
• The Lawyer's Invocation to Spring
• North, East, South, and West
• Martin Luther at Potsdam
• An Idyll of Phatte and Leene
• The House that Jack Built
• Palabras Grandiosas
• A Love Playnt—1370
• Darwinity
• Select Passages from a Coming Port
• The Romaunt of Humpty Dumpty
• The Wedding
• In Memoriam Technicam
• "Songs Without Words"
• At the Sign of the Cock
• Presto Furioso
• To Julia in Shooting Togs and a Herrickose Vein
• Farewell
• Here is the Tale
• The Willows
• A Ballad
• The Translated Way
• Commonplaces
• Angelo Orders His Dinner
• The Promissory Note
• Camerados
• The Last Ride Together
• Imitation of Walt Whitman
• Salad
• If
• The Jabberwocky of Authors
• The Town of Nice
• The Willow-Tree
• A Ballade of Ballade-Mongers
• VIII - BATHOS
• The Confession
• If You Have Seen
• Circumstance
• Elegy
• Our Traveller
• Optimism
• The Declaration
• He Came to Pay
• The Forlorn One
• Rural Raptures
• A Fragment
• The Biter Bit
• Comfort in Affliction
• The Husband's Petition
• Lines Written After a Battle
• Lines
• The Imaginative Crisis
• IX - PARODY
• The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell
• Nephelidia
• Up the Spout
• In Immemoriam
• Lucy Lake
• The Cock and the Bull
• Ballad
• Disaster
• Wordsworthian Reminiscence
• Inspect Us
• The Messed Damozel
• A Melton Mowbray Pork-Pie
• Israfiddlestrings
• After Dilettante Concetti
• Whenceness of the Which
• The Little Star
• The Original Lamb
• Sainte Margérie
• Robert Frost
• Owen Seaman
• The Modern Hiawatha
• Somewhere-In-Europe-Wocky
• Rigid Body Sings
• A Ballad of High Endeavor
• Father William
• The Poets at Tea
• How Often
• If I Should Die to-Night
• "The Day is Done"
• Jacob
• Ballad of the Canal
• There's a Bower of Bean-Vines
• Reuben
• The Wife
• When Lovely Woman
• John Thompson's Daughter
• A Portrait
• Annabel Lee
• Home Sweet Home with Variations
• An Old Song by New Singers
• More Impressions
• Nursery Rhymes à la Mode
• A Maudle-In Ballad
• Gillian
• Extracts Fkom the Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne
• Diversions of the Re-Echo Club
• Styx River Anthology
• Answer to Master Wither's Song, "Shall I, Wasting in Despair?"
• Song of the Springtide
• The Village Choir
• My Foe
• Nursery Song in Pidgin English
• Father William
• A Poe-'Em of Passion
• How the Daughters Come Down at Dunoon
• To an Importunate Host
• Cremation
• An Imitation of Wordsworth
• The Lay of the Love-Lorn
• Only Seven
• 'Twas Ever Thus
• Foam and Fangs
• X - NARRATIVE
• Little Billee
• The Crystal Palace
• The Wofle New Ballad of Jane Roney and Mary Brown
• King John and the Abbot
• On the Death of a Favorite Cat
• Misadventures at Margate
• The Gouty Merchant and the Stranger
• The Diverting History of John Gilpin
• Paddy O'Rafther
• Here She Goes, and there She Goes
• The Quaker's Meeting
• The Jester Condemned to Death
• The Deacon's Masterpiece;
• The Ballad of the Oysterman
• The Well of St. Keyne
• The Jackdaw of Rheims
• The Knight and the Lady
• An Eastern Question
• My Aunt's Spectre
• Casey at the Bat
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin
• The Goose
• The Ballad of Charity
• The Post Captain
• Robinson Crusoe's Story
• Ben Bluff
• The Pilgrims and the Peas
• Tam O'Shanter
• That Gentle Man from Boston Town
• The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell"
• Ferdinando and Elvira
• Gentle Alice Brown
• The Story of Prince Agib
• Sir Guy the Crusader
• Kitty Wants to Write
• Dighton is Engaged!
• Plain Language from Truthful James
• The Society Upon the Stanislaus
• "Jim"
• William Brown of Oregon
• Little Breeches
• The Enchanted Shirt
• Jim Bludso
• Wreck of the "Julie Plante"
• The Alarmed Skipper
• The Elderly Gentleman
• Saying Not Meaning
• Hans Breitmann's Party
• Ballad by Hans Breitmann
• Grampy Sings a Song
• The First Banjo
• The Romance of the Carpet
• The Hunting of the Snark
• The Old Man and Jim
• A Sailor's Yarn
• The Converted Cannibals
• The Retired Pork-Butcher and the Spook
• Skipper Ireson's Ride
• Darius Green and His Flying-Machine
• A Great Fight
• The Donnybrook Jig
• Unfortunate Miss Bailey
• The Laird O' Cockpen
• A Wedding
• XI - TRIBUTE
• The Ahkond of Swat
• The Ahkoond of Swat
• Dirge of the Moolla of Kotal
• The Ballad of Bouillabaisse
• Ould Doctor Mack
• Father O'Flynn
• The Bald-Headed Tyrant
• Barney McGee
• Address to the Toothache
• A Farewell to Tobacco
• John Barleycorn
• Stanzas to Pale Ale
• Ode to Tobacco
• Sonnet to a Clam
• To a Fly
• Ode to a Bobtailed Cat
• A Dirge
• XII - WHIMSEY
• An Elegy
• Parson Gray
• The Irishman and the Lady
• The Cataract of Lodore
• Lay of the Deserted Influenzaed
• Belagcholly Days
• Rhyme of the Rail
• Echo
• Song
• A Gentle Echo on Woman
• Lay of Ancient Rome
• A New Song
• The American Traveller
• The Zealless Xylographer
• The Old Line Fence
• O-U-G-H
• Enigma on the Letter H
• Travesty of Miss Fanshawe's Enigma
• An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
• An Epitaph
• Old Grimes
• The Endless Song
• The Hundred Best Books
• The Cosmic Egg
• Five Wines
• A Rhyme for Musicians
• My Madeline
• Susan Simpson
• The March to Moscow
• Half Hours with the Classics
• On the Oxford Carrier
• Ninety-Nine in the Shade
• The Triolet
• The Rondeau
• Ode to the Human Heart
• A Strike Among the Poets
• Whatever is, is Right
• Nothing
• Dirge
• O D V
• A Man of Words
• Similes
• No!
• Faithless Sally Brown
• Tim Turpin
• Faithless Nelly Gray
• Sally Simpkin's Lament
• Death's Ramble
• Panegyric on the Ladies
• Ambiguous Lines
• Surnames
• A Ternary of Littles, Upon a Pipkin of Jelly Sent to a Lady
• A Carman's Account of a Law-Suit
• Out of Sight, Out of Mind
• Nongtongpaw
• Logical English
• Logic
• The Careful Penman
• Questions with Answers
• Conjugal Conjugations
• Love's Moods and Senses
• The Siege of Belgrade
• The Happy Man
• The Bells
• Takings
• A Bachelor's Mono-Rhyme
• The Art of Book-Keeping
• An Invitation to the Zoological Gardens
• A Nocturnal Sketch
• Lovelilts
• Jocosa Lyra
• To a Thesaurus
• The Future of the Classics
• Cautionary Verses
• The War: A-Z
• Lines to Miss Florence Huntingdon
• To My Nose
• A Polka Lyric
• A Catalectic Monody!
• Ode for a Social Meeting
• The Jovial Priest's Confession
• Limericks
• Recited by a Chinese Infant
• XIII - NONSENSE
• Lunar Stanzas
• The Whango Tree
• Three Children
• 'Tis Midnight
• Cossimbazar
• An Unsuspected Fact
• The Cumberbunce
• Mr. Finney's Turnip
• Nonsense Verses
• Like to the Thundering Tone
• Æstivation
• Uncle Simon and Uncle Jim
• A Tragic Story
• Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad House
• The Jim-Jam King of the Jou-Jous
• To Marie
• My Dream
• The Rollicking Mastodon
• Nonsense Verses
• Spirk Troll-Derisive
• The Man in the Moon
• The Lugubrious Whing-Whang
• The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
• The Jumblies
• The Pobble Who Has No Toes
• The New Vestments
• The Two Old Bachelors
• Jabberwocky
• Ways and Means
• Humpty Dumpty's Recitation
• Some Hallucinations
• Sing for the Garish Eye
• The Shipwreck
• Uffia
• 'Tis Sweet to Roam
• Three Jovial Huntsmen
• King Arthur
• Hyder Iddle
• The Ocean Wanderer
• Scientific Proof
• The Thingumbob
• Wonders of Nature
• Lines by an Old Fogy
• A Country Summer Pastoral
• Turvey Top
• A Ballad of Bedlam
• XIV - NATURAL HISTORY
• The Fastidious Serpent
• The Legend of the First Cam-u-el
• Unsatisfied Yearning
• Kindly Advice
• Kindness to Animals
• To Be or Not to Be
• The Hen
• Of Baiting the Lion
• The Flamingo
• Why Doth a Pussy Cat?
• The Walrus and the Carpenter
• Nirvana
• The Catfish
• War Relief
• The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
• Mexican Serenade
• Orphan Born
• Divided Destinies
• The Viper
• The Llama
• The Yak
• The Frog
• The Microbe
• The Great Black Crow
• The Colubriad
• The Retired Cat
• A Darwinian Ballad
• The Pig
• A Fish Story
• The Cameronian Cat
• The Young Gazelle
• The Ballad of the Emeu
• The Turtle and Flamingo
• XV - JUNIORS
• Prior to Miss Belle's Appearance
• There was a Little Girl
• The Naughty Darkey Boy
• Dutch Lullaby
• The Dinkey-Bird
• The Little Peach
• Counsel to Those that Eat
• Home and Mother
• Little Orphant Annie
• A Visit from St. Nicholas
• A Nursery Legend
• A Little Goose
• Leedle Yawcob Strauss
• A Parental Ode to My Son, Aged Three Years and Five Months
• Little Mamma
• The Comical Girl
• Bunches of Grapes
• XVI - IMMORTAL STANZAS
• The Purple Cow
• The Young Lady of Niger
• The Laughing Willow
• Said Opie Read
• Manila
• On the Aristocracy of Harvard
• On the Democracy of Yale
• The Herring
• If the Man
• The Kilkenny Cats
• Poor Dear Grandpapa
• More Walks
• Indifference
• Madame Sans Souci
• A Riddle
• If
• Endnotes