I do not bother o’er a foe

Whose name and face I do not know.

I mind me not the small attack

Of him who bites behind my back:

But Heaven help me to the end

’Gainst that one who was once my friend.

JOKES OF THE NIGHT

Blessed jokes of my dreams! Your praises I’d sing.

Blessed

No mirth can compare to the mirth that you bring.

I’ve read London Punch from beginning to end,

On all comic papers much money I spend,

But naught that is in them can ever seem bright

Beside the rich jokes that I dream of at night.

How I laugh at those jests of my brain when at rest,

The gladdest and merriest, sweetest and best!

And how, when I wake in the morning and try

To call them to mind, oh how bashful, how shy

They seem, how they scatter and hide out of sight—

Those jokes of my dreamings, those jests of the night!

 Prev. P 43/63 next