A new monk shows up at a monastery where the monks spend their time making copies of ancient books. The new monk goes to the basement of the monastery saying he wants to make copies of the originals rather than of others’ copies so as to avoid duplicating errors they might have made. Several hours later the monks, wondering where their new friend is, find him crying in the basement. They ask him what is wrong and he says “the word is CELEBRATE, not CELIBATE!”
Joke 2
A blowfly goes into a bar and asks: “Is that stool taken?”
Joke 3
They have just found the gene for shyness. They would have found it earlier, but it was hiding behind two other genes.
A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold, yet the world was dear to him;,
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.
And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change and the strife of the world were free,
For Steam was barred by the mountain-range and the rocks of the Open Sea.
And the last that were born of a noble race, when the page of the South was fair,
The last of the conquered dwelt in peace with the last of the victors there.
He saw their hearts with the author’s eyes who had written their ancient lore,
And he saw their lives as he’d dreamed of such, ah! many a year before.
And ‘I’ll write a book of these simple folk ere I to the world return,
‘And the cold who read shall be kind for these, and the wise who read shall learn.
‘Never again in a song of mine shall a jarring note be heard:
‘Never again shall a page or line be marred by a bitter word;
‘But love and laughter and kindly hours will the book I’ll write recall,
‘With chastening tears for the loss of one, and sighs for their sorrows all.
‘Old eyes will light with a kindly smile, and the young eyes dance with glee,
‘And the heart of the cynic will rest awhile for my simple folk and me.’
The lines ran on as he dipped his pen, ran true to his heart and ear,
Like the brighter pages of memory when every line is clear.
The pictures came and the pictures passed, like days of love and light,
He saw his chapters from first to last, and he thought it grand to write.
And the writer kissed his girlish wife, and he kissed her twice for pride:
‘’Tis a book of love, though a book of life! and a book you’ll read!’ he cried.
He was blind at first to each senseless slight (for shabby and poor he came)
From local ‘Fashion’ and mortgaged pride that scarce could sign its name.
What dreamer would dream of such paltry pride in a scene so fresh and fair?
But the local spirit intensified, with its pitiful shams, was there;
There were cliques wherever two houses stood (no rest for a family ghost!)
They hated each other as women could, but they hated the stranger most.
The writer wrote by day and night and he cried in the face of Fate,
‘I’ll cleave to my dream of life in spite of the cynical ghosts that wait.
‘’Tis the shyness born of their simple lives,’ he said to the paltry pride,
(The homely tongues of the simple wives ne’er erred on the generous side),
‘They’ll prove me true and they’ll prove me kind ere the year of grace be passed,’
But the ignorant whisper of ‘axe to grind!’ went home to his heart at last.
The writer sat by his drift-wood fire three nights of the South-east gale,
His pen lay idle on pages vain, for his book was a fairy tale.
The world-wise lines of an elder age were plain on his aching brow,
As he sadly thought of each brighter page that would never be written now.
‘I’ll write no more!’ But he bowed his head, for his heart was in Dreamland yet,
‘The pages written I’ll burn,’ he said, ‘and the pages thought forget.’
But he heard the hymn of the Open Sea, and the old fierce anger burned,
And he wrenched his heart from its dreamland free as the fire of his youth returned:,
‘The weak man’s madness, the strong man’s scorn, the rebellious hate of youth
‘From a deeper love of the world are born! And the cynical ghost is Truth!’
And the writer rose with a strength anew wherein Doubt could have no part;
‘I’ll write my book and it shall be true, the truth of a writer’s heart.
‘Ay! cover the wrong with a fairy tale, who never knew want or care,
‘A bright green scum on a stagnant pool that will reek the longer there.
‘You may starve the writer and buy the pen, you may drive it with want and fear,
‘But the lines run false in the hearts of men, and false to the writer’s ear.
‘The bard’s a rebel and strife his part, and he’ll burst from his bonds anew,
‘Till all pens write from a single heart! And so may the dream come true.
‘’Tis ever the same in the paths of men where money and dress are all,
‘The crawler will bully whene’er he can, and the bully who can’t will crawl.
‘And this is the creed in the local hole, where the souls of the selfish rule;
‘Borrow and cheat while the stranger’s green, then sneer at the simple fool.
‘Spit your spite at the men whom Fate has placed in the head-race first,
‘And hate till death, with a senseless hate, the man you have injured worst!
‘There are generous hearts in the grinding street, but the Hearts of the World go west;
‘For the men who toil in the dust and heat of the barren lands are best!
‘The stranger’s hand to the stranger, yet, for a roving folk are mine,
‘The stranger’s store for the stranger set, and the camp-fire glow the sign!
‘The generous hearts of the world, we find, thrive best on the barren sod,
‘And the selfish thrive where Nature’s kind (they’d bully or crawl to God!)
‘I was born to write of the things that are! and the strength was given to me.
‘I was born to strike at the things that mar the world as the world should be!
‘By the dumb heart-hunger and dreams of youth, by the hungry tracks I’ve trod,
‘I’ll fight as a man for the sake of truth, nor pose as a martyred god.
‘By the heart of “Bill” and the heart of “Jim,” and the men that their hearts deem “white,”
‘By the handgrips fierce, and the hard eyes dim with forbidden tears!, I’ll write!
‘I’ll write untroubled by cultured fools, or the dense that fume and fret,
‘For against the wisdom of all their schools I would stake mine instinct yet!
‘For the cynical strain in the writer’s song is the world, not he, to blame,
‘And I’ll write as I think, in the knowledge strong that thousands think the same;
‘And the men who fight in the Dry Country grim battles by day, by night,
‘Will believe in me, and will stand by me, and will say to the world, “He’s right!”’
###
Joke:
An electron and a positron go into a bar.
Positron: “Your round.”
Electron: “Are you sure?”
Positron: “I’m positive.”
Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned.
His days are counted and reprieve is vain:
Who shall entreat with Death to stay his hand;
Or cloke the shameful nakedness of pain?
Send here the bold, the seekers of the way,
The passionless, the unshakeable of soul,
Who serve the inmost mysteries of man’s clay,
And ask no more than leave to make them whole.
I
Love and praise, and a length of days whose shadow cast upon time is light,
Days whose sound was a spell shed round from wheeling wings as of doves in flight,
Meet in one, that the mounting sun to-day may triumph, and cast out night.
Two years more than the full fourscore lay hallowing hands on a sacred head,
Scarce one score of the perfect four uncrowned of fame as they smiled and fled:
Still and soft and alive aloft their sunlight stays though the suns be dead.
Ere we were or were thought on, ere the love that gave us to life began,
Fame grew strong with his crescent song, to greet the goal of the race they ran,
Song with fame, and the lustrous name with years whose changes acclaimed the man.
II
Soon, ere time in the rounding rhyme of choral seasons had hailed us men,
We too heard and acclaimed the word whose breath was life upon England then,
Life more bright than the breathless light of soundless noon in a songless glen.
Ah, the joy of the heartstruck boy whose ear was opened of love to hear!
Ah, the bliss of the burning kiss of song and spirit, the mounting cheer
Lit with fire of divine desire and love that knew not if love were fear!
Fear and love as of heaven above and earth enkindled of heaven were one;
One white flame, that around his name grew keen and strong as the worldwide sun;
Awe made bright with implied delight, as weft with weft of the rainbow spun.
III
He that fears not the voice he hears and loves shall never have heart to sing:
All the grace of the sun-god’s face that bids the soul as a fountain spring
Bids the brow that receives it bow, and hail his likeness on earth as king.
We that knew when the sun’s shaft flew beheld and worshipped, adored and heard:
Light rang round it of shining sound, whence all men’s hearts were subdued and stirred:
Joy, love, sorrow, the day, the morrow, took life upon them in one man’s word.
Not for him can the years wax dim, nor downward swerve on a darkening way:
Upward wind they, and leave behind such light as lightens the front of May:
Fair as youth and sublime as truth we find the fame that we hail to-day.
Happy Birthday, Roberta, and many, many more. Enjoy them all in good health.
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just a little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’
There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him ‘Dad.’
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet you somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
And you knew it, by the way his children had
Of saying ‘Father.’
He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And the opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.
He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Well, he used it as a turning pole in play.
But he showed the tender sympathy of God
To his children in their troubles, and their joys.
He was always chum and comrade with his boys,
And his daughters – oh, you ought to hear them say
‘Father.’
Now I think of all achievements ’tis the least
To perpetuate the species; it is done
By the insect and the serpent, and the beast.
But the man who keeps his body, and his thought,
WORTH bestowing on an offspring love-begot,
Then the highest earthly glory he has won,
When in pride a grown-up daughter or a son
Says ‘That’s Father.’
