Mother. "Well, darling, do you remember anything the clergyman said?"
Barbara. "Yes, Mummy, I heard him say, 'half-past-six'!"
"PUNCH" IN HIS ELEMENT.
(Modelled on the Opening Chorus of "Atalanta in Calydon.")
Once in so many calendar spaces
Punch, appearing on All Fools' Day,
Fills with giggles the hours and graces,
Causes the hares of March to stay;
And the soft sweet hatters along the Strand
Remember the dreams of Wonderland,
And the chessboard world and the White King's faces,
The hamless commons and all the hay.
Come with loud bells and belabouring of bladder,
Spirit of Laughter, descend on the town
With tumbling of paint-pails from top of the ladder
And blowing of tiles from the stockbroker's crown;
Bind on thy hosen in motley halves
Over the rondure and curve of thy calves;
The night may be mad, but the morn shall be madder—
Madder than moonshine and madder than brown.
What shall I say to it, how shall I pipe of it,
Weave it what strains of ineffable things?
O that my Muse were a Muse with a gripe of it,
Engined with petrol and wafted by wings!
For the sorrows and sighings of winter are done,
And Punch is appearing on April 1,
And a savour of daffodils clings to the type of it,
And the buttered balm of a crumpet clings.