A TENOR, all singers above (This doesn’t admit of a question), Should keep himself quiet, Attend to his diet, And carefully nurse his digestion. But when he is madly in love, It’s certain to tell on his singing— You can’t do chromatics With proper emphatics When anguish your bosom is wringing! When distracted with worries in plenty, And his pulse is a hundred and twenty, And his fluttering bosom the slave of mistrust is, A tenor can’t do himself justice. Now observe—(_sings a high note_)— You see, I can’t do myself justice!
I could sing, if my fervour were mock, It’s easy enough if you’re acting, But when one’s emotion Is born of devotion, You mustn’t be over-exacting. One ought to be firm as a rock To venture a shake in _vibrato_; When fervour’s expected, Keep cool and collected, Or never attempt _agitato_. But, of course, when his tongue is of leather, And his lips appear pasted together, And his sensitive palate as dry as a crust is, A tenor can’t do himself justice. Now observe—(_sings a cadence_)— It’s no use—I can’t do myself justice!
QUIXOTIC is his enterprise, and hopeless his adventure is, Who seeks for jocularities that haven’t yet been said. The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries, And every joke that’s possible has long ago been made. I started as a humorist with lots of mental fizziness, But humour is a drug which it’s the fashion to abuse; For my stock-in-trade, my fixtures, and the goodwill of the business No reasonable offer I am likely to refuse. And if anybody choose He may circulate the news That no reasonable offer I’m likely to refuse.
Oh happy was that humorist—the first that made a pun at all— Who when a joke occurred to him, however poor and mean, Was absolutely certain that it never had been done at all— How popular at dinners must that humorist have been!
Oh the days when some stepfather for the query held a handle out, The door-mat from the scraper, is it distant very far? And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron blew the candle out, And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar! But your modern hearers are In their tastes particular, And they sneer if you inform them that a door can be a-jar!
In search of quip and quiddity, I’ve sat all day, alone, apart— And all that I could hit on as a problem was—to find Analogy between a scrag of mutton and a Bony-part, Which offers slight employment to the speculative mind: For you cannot call it very good, however great your charity— It’s not the sort of humour that is greeted with a shout— And I’ve come to the conclusion that my mine of jocularity In present Anno Domini, is worked completely out! Though the notion you may scout, I can prove beyond a doubt That my mine of jocularity is utterly worked out.