by Robert Herrick
1591 – 1674
What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)
1835 – 1905
How did they keep his birthday then,
The little fair Christ, so long ago?
O, many there were to be housed and fed,
And there was no place in the inn, they said,
So into the manger the Christ must go,
To lodge with the cattle and not with men.
The ox and the ass they munched their hay
They munched and they slumbered, wondering not,
And out in the midnight cold and blue
The shepherds slept, and the sheep slept too,
Till the angels’ song and the bright star ray
Guided the wise men to the spot.
But only the wise men knelt and praised,
And only the shepherds came to see,
And the rest of the world cared not at all
For the little Christ in the oxen’s stall;
And we are angry and amazed
That such a dull, hard thing should be!
How do we keep his birthday now?
We ring the bells and we raise the strain,
We hang up garland, everywhere
And bid the tapers, twinkle fair,
And feast and frolic–and then we go
Back to the Mine old lives again.
Are we so better, then, than they
Who failed the new-born Christ to see?
To them a helpless babe,–to us
He shines a Saviour glorious,
Our Lord, our Friend, our All–yet we
Are half asleep this Christmas day.
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!”
A blowfly goes into a bar and asks: “Is that stool taken?”
They have just found the gene for shyness. They would have found it earlier, but it was hiding behind two other genes.
Same for Joke 3
By Ellis Parker Butler
1869 – 1937
Listen, ladies, while I sing
The ballad of John Henry King.
John Henry was a bachelor,
His age was thirty-three or four.
Two maids for his affection vied,
And each desired to be his bride,
And bravely did they strive to bring
Unto their feet John Henry King.
John Henry liked them both so well,
To save his life he could not tell
Which he most wished to be his bride,
Nor was he able to decide.
Fair Kate was jolly, bright, and gay,
And sunny as a summer day;
Marie was kind, sedate, and sweet,
With gentle ways and manners neat.
Each was so dear that John confessed
He could not tell which he liked best.
He studied them for quite a year,
And still found no solution near,
And might have studied two years more
Had he not, walking on the shore,
Conceived a very simple way
Of ending his prolonged delay
A way in which he might decide
Which of the maids should be his bride.
He said, “I’ll toss into the air
A dollar, and I’ll toss it fair;
If heads come up, I’ll wed Marie;
If tails, fair Kate my bride shall be.”
Then from his leather pocket-book
A dollar bright and new he took;
He kissed one side for fair Marie,
The other side for Kate kissed he.
Then in a manner free and fair
He tossed the dollar in the air.
“Ye fates,” he cried, “pray let this be
A lucky throw indeed for me!”
The dollar rose, the dollar fell;
He watched its whirling transit well,
And off some twenty yards or more
The dollar fell upon the shore.
John Henry ran to where it struck
To see which maiden was in luck.
But, oh, the irony of fate!
Upon its edge the coin stood straight!
And there, embedded in the sand,
John Henry let the dollar stand!
And he will tempt his fate no more,
But live and die a bachelor.
Thus, ladies, you have heard me sing
The ballad of John Henry King
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!”’
###
An electron and a positron go into a bar.
Positron: “Your round.”
Electron: “Are you sure?”
Positron: “I’m positive.”
With the holidays upon us I would like to share a personal experience with my family and friends about drinking and driving. As you may know some of us have been known to have brushes with the authorities from time to time on the way home after a “social session” out with friends.
Well, three days ago I was out for an evening with friends and had a sampling of rye, scotch, Jack and several mixed cocktails. This was followed by dinner and some rather nice red wine. And to finish the evening a couple of snifters of Hennessy Paradis. Feeling jolly I still had the sense to know that I may be over the limit. That’s when I did something that I’ve never done before . . . I took a cab home!
Sure enough on the way home there was a police road block, but since it was a cab they waved it past. I arrived home safely without incident. This was a real relief and surprise because I had never driven a cab before. I don’t even know where I got it and now that it’s in my garage I don’t know what to do with it!
Bubba Boudreaux, the smoothest-talking Cajun in the Louisiana National Guard, got called up to active duty. His first assignment was in a military induction center. Because he was a good talker, they assigned him the duty of advising new recruits about government benefits, especially the GI insurance to which they were entitled.
The officer in charge soon noticed that Boudreaux was getting a 99% sign-up rate for the more expensive supplemental form of GI insurance.
This was remarkable, because it cost these low-income recruits $30.00 per month for the higher coverage, compared to what the government was already providing at no charge.
The officer decided he’d sit in the back of the room at the next briefing and observe Boudreaux’s sales pitch.
Boudreaux stood up before the latest group of inductees and said, “If you has da normal GI insurans an’ you goes to Afghanistan an’ gets youself killed, da govment’ pays you benefishery $20,000. If you takes out da suppmental insurans, which cost you only t’irty dollars a munt, den da governmen’ gots ta pay you benefishery $400,000!”
“Now,” Boudreaux concluded, “which bunch you tink dey gonna send ta Afghanistan first?”
###
By James Whitcomb Riley
1849 – 1916
Ay, thou varlet! Laugh away!
All the world’s a holiday!
Laugh away, and roar and shout
Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out!
Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes
Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs
With thy swollen palms, and roar
As thou never hast before!
Lustier! Wilt thou! Peal on peal!
Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel –
Wrestle with thy loins, and then
Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again!