TO STEPHEN LEACOCK
(Professor of Political Economy at McGill University, Montreal, and author of “Further Foolishness” and other notable works of humour.)
The life that is flagrantly double,
Conflicting in conduct and aim,
Is seldom untainted by trouble
And commonly closes in shame;
But no such anxieties pester
Your dual existence, which links
The functions of don and of jester—
High thoughts and high jinks.
Your earliest venture perhaps is
Unique in the rapture intense
Displayed in these riotous Lapses
From all that could savour of sense,
Recalling the “goaks” and the gladness
Of one whom we elders adored—
The methodical midsummer madness
Of Artemus Ward.
With you, O enchanting Canadian,
We laughed till you gave us a stitch
In our sides at the wondrous Arcadian
Exploits of the indolent rich;
We loved your satirical sniping,
And followed, far over “the pond,”
The lure of your whimsical piping
Behind the Beyond.
In place of the squalor that stretches
Unchanged o’er the realist’s page,
The sunshine that glows in your Sketches
Is potent our griefs to assuage;
And when, on your mettlesome charger,
Full tilt against reason you go,
Your Lunacy’s finer and Larger
Than any I know.
The faults of ephemeral fiction,
Exotic, erotic or smart,
The vice of delirious diction,
The latest excesses of Art—
You flay in felicitous fashion,
With dexterous choice of your tools,
A scourge for unsavoury passion,
A hammer for fools.
And yet, though so freakish and dashing,
You are not the slave of your fun,
For there’s nobody better at lashing
The crimes and the cant of the Hun;
Anyhow, I’d be proud as a peacock
To have it inscribed on my tomb:
“He followed the footsteps of Leacock
In banishing gloom.”