THE LOST JOKE.
(A Song of a Sad but Common Experience.)
Air:—"The Lost Chord."
Seated one day in my study
I was listless and ill at ease,
And my fingers twiddled idly
With the novel upon my knees.
I know not where I was straying
On the poppy-clustered shore,
But I suddenly struck on a Sparkler
Which fairly made me roar.
I have joked some jokes in my time, Sir,
But this was a Champion Joke,
And it fairly cut all record
As a humoristic stroke.
It was good for a dozen of dinners,
It was fit to crown my fame
As a shaper of sheer Side-splitters,
For which I have such a name.
It flooded my spirit's twilight
Like the dawn on a dim dark lake,
For I knew that against all rivals
It would fairly "take the cake."
I said I will try it to-morrow,—
I won't even tell my wife,—
It will certainly fetch Lord FUMFUDGE,
And then—I am made for life!
It links two most distant meanings
Into one perfect chime—
Here my servant broke the silence,
And said it was dinner-time!
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That great Lost Joke of mine,
Which had slipped from my mind entirely
When I sat me down to dine.
It may be that something some day
May bring it me back again;
But I only wish—confound it!—
I had fixed it with pencil or pen.
It may be that luck—bright Angel!—
May inspire me once more with that stroke,
But I fear me 'tis only in Limbo
I shall light on my great Lost Joke!
MRS. R., who has been busy with her juniors, tells us that she has been horrified to learn from her Nephew, who has been fighting the Slave-hunters on the Congo, that in that country they "preserve" the bodies of their enemies. He writes to her—"I have 'potted' several Arabs."
