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!
Take the one that came to me to-day just at dawn:
The Cable-Car turns and remarks to the Prawn,
“The Crowbar is seasick; but then what of that,
As long as the Camel won’t wear a silk hat?”
I laughed—why, I laughed till my wife had a fright
For fear I’d go wild from that joke of the night.
And they’re all much like that one—elusive enough,