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Verse and Worse
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When you have done with childish toys
And put your infant books away.
Ah! then I pray that hand-in-hand
You tread the paths of Loverland.
MORAL
Don't fall in love, but, when you do,
Take care that he (or she) does too;
And, lastly, to misquote the bard,
If you must love, don't love too hard.
XXII
HOMELAND
The tour is over! We must part!
Our mutual journey at an end.
O bid farewell, with aching heart,
To guide, philosopher, and friend;
And note, as you remark 'Good-bye!'
The kindly tear that dims his eye.
The tour is ended! Sad but true!
No more together may we roam!
We turn our lonely footsteps to
The spot that's known as Home, Sweet Home.
Nor time nor temper can afford
A more protracted trip abroad.
O Home! where we must always be
So hopelessly misunderstood;
Where waits a tactless family,
To tell us things 'for our own good';
Where relatives, with searchlight eyes,
Can penetrate our choicest lies.
Where all our kith and kin combine
To prove that we are worse than rude,
If we should criticise the wine
Or make complaints about the food.
Thank goodness, then, to quote the pome,
Thank goodness there's 'no place like Home!'
PART II
CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
AND
OTHER RUTHLESS RHYMES
CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
PRELUDE
(By Way of Advertisement)
I have no knowledge of disease,
No notion what ill-health may be,
Since Housemaid's Throat and Smoker's Knees
Mean something different to me
To what they do to other folk.
(This is, I vow, no vulgar joke.)
Of course, when young, I had complaints,
And little childish accidents;
For twice I ate a box of paints,
And once I swallowed eighteen pence.
(N.B., I missed the paints a lot,
But got the coins back on the spot.)
But no practitioner has seen
My tongue since then, down to the present,
And I, alas! have never been
An interesting convalescent.
Ah! why am I alone denied
The Humour of a weak inside?
Why is it? I will tell you why;
A certain mixture is to blame.
One day for fun I chanced to try
A bottle of – what is the name?
That thing they advertise a lot, —
(Oh, what a memory I've got!)
It's stuff you must, of course, have seen,
Retailed in bottles, tins, or pots,
In cakes or little pills, I mean —
(Oh goodness me! I've bought such lots,
That I am really much to blame
For not remembering the name!)
Still, let me recommend a keg
(With maker's name, be sure, above it),
'Tis sweeter than a new-mown egg,
And village idiots simply love it;
Old persons sit and scream for it, —
I do so hope you'll try a bit!
And put your infant books away.
Ah! then I pray that hand-in-hand
You tread the paths of Loverland.
MORAL
Don't fall in love, but, when you do,
Take care that he (or she) does too;
And, lastly, to misquote the bard,
If you must love, don't love too hard.
XXII
HOMELAND
The tour is over! We must part!
Our mutual journey at an end.
O bid farewell, with aching heart,
To guide, philosopher, and friend;
And note, as you remark 'Good-bye!'
The kindly tear that dims his eye.
The tour is ended! Sad but true!
No more together may we roam!
We turn our lonely footsteps to
The spot that's known as Home, Sweet Home.
Nor time nor temper can afford
A more protracted trip abroad.
O Home! where we must always be
So hopelessly misunderstood;
Where waits a tactless family,
To tell us things 'for our own good';
Where relatives, with searchlight eyes,
Can penetrate our choicest lies.
Where all our kith and kin combine
To prove that we are worse than rude,
If we should criticise the wine
Or make complaints about the food.
Thank goodness, then, to quote the pome,
Thank goodness there's 'no place like Home!'
PART II
CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
AND
OTHER RUTHLESS RHYMES
CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
PRELUDE
(By Way of Advertisement)
I have no knowledge of disease,
No notion what ill-health may be,
Since Housemaid's Throat and Smoker's Knees
Mean something different to me
To what they do to other folk.
(This is, I vow, no vulgar joke.)
Of course, when young, I had complaints,
And little childish accidents;
For twice I ate a box of paints,
And once I swallowed eighteen pence.
(N.B., I missed the paints a lot,
But got the coins back on the spot.)
But no practitioner has seen
My tongue since then, down to the present,
And I, alas! have never been
An interesting convalescent.
Ah! why am I alone denied
The Humour of a weak inside?
Why is it? I will tell you why;
A certain mixture is to blame.
One day for fun I chanced to try
A bottle of – what is the name?
That thing they advertise a lot, —
(Oh, what a memory I've got!)
It's stuff you must, of course, have seen,
Retailed in bottles, tins, or pots,
In cakes or little pills, I mean —
(Oh goodness me! I've bought such lots,
That I am really much to blame
For not remembering the name!)
Still, let me recommend a keg
(With maker's name, be sure, above it),
'Tis sweeter than a new-mown egg,
And village idiots simply love it;
Old persons sit and scream for it, —
I do so hope you'll try a bit!
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