Volume 10 — AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CONGRESS

"'There's none can tell about my birth For I'm as old as the big round earth; Ye young Immortals clear the track, I'm the bearded Joke on the Carpet tack." Thus spoke A Joke With boastful croak; And as he said, Upon his head He stood, and waited for the tread Of thoughtless wight, Who, in the night, Gets up, arrayed in garments white, And indiscreet, With unshod feet, Prowls round for something good to eat. But other Jokes His speech provokes; And old, and bald, and lame, and gray, With loftiest scorn they say him Nay; And bid him hold his unweaned tongue, For they were blind ere he was young. So hot They grew, This complot Crew, They laid a plan To catch a Man; That all the clan Might then trepan His skull with Jokes; they thus began: First Mule, his heel its skill to try, Amid his ribs like lightning laid— And back recoiled—he well knew why; "Insurance Man," he faintly sayed. Next Stove Pipe rushed, as hot as fire, "Put up!" he cried, in accents bold; With Elbow joint he struck the lyre, And knocked the Weather Prophet cold. But thou, Ice Cream, with hair so gray, Three thousand years before the Flood, Cold, bitter cold, will be the day Thou dost not warm the Jester's blood. "Spoons for the spooney," was her ancient song, That with slow measure dragged its deathless length along. And longer had she sung, but with a frown, Old Pie, impatient, rose And roared, "Behold, I am the Funny Clown! And without me there is no Joke that goes. "To every Jester in the land, I lend my omnipresent hand; I've filled in Jokes of every grade Since ever Jokes and Pies were made; Sewed, pegged and pasted, glued or cast, If not the first of Jokes, I'll be the last." With heart unripe and mottled hide, Pale summer watermeloncholly sighed, And—but the Muse would find it vain To give a list of all the train; The hairless, purblind, toothless crew, That burst on Man's astonished view— The Bull dog and the Garden gate; The Girl's Papa in wrathful state; Ma'ma in law; the Leathern Clam; The Woodshed Cat; the Rampant Ram; The Fly, the Goat, the Skating Rink, The Paste-brush plunging in the Ink; The Baby wailing in the Dark; The Songs they sang upon the Ark; Things that were old when Earth was new, And as they lived still old and older grew, And as these Jokes about him cried, And all their Ancient Arts upon him tried, Their hapless victim, Man, lay down and died.