Poems on Funny

There was an Old Derry down Derry,
Who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a Book,
And with laughter they shook,
At the fun of that Derry down Derry!

by Edward Lear.

345

Funny—to be a Century—
And see the People—going by—
I—should die of the Oddity—
But then—I'm not so staid—as He—

He keeps His Secrets safely—very—
Were He to tell—extremely sorry
This Bashful Globe of Ours would be—
So dainty of Publicity—

by Emily Dickinson.

I HEARD thee laugh,
And in this merriment
I defined the measure of my pain;
I knew that I was alone,
Alone with love,
Poor shivering love,
And he, little sprite,
Came to watch with me,
And at midnight
We were like two creatures by a dead camp-fire.

by Stephen Crane.

Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill

From bitterness in efflorescence,
With murderous poisons packed therein;
The poet draws pellucid essence
Pure as a drop of metheglin.

by Elinor Morton Wylie.

WHEN Thomas set this tablet here,
Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;
And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,
Time had defaced that garrison.
Now I in turn keep watch and ward
In my red house, in my walled yard
Of sunflowers, sitting here at ease
With friends and my bright canvases.
But hark, and you may hear quite plain
Time's chuckled laughter in the lane.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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!

by James Whitcomb Riley.

One of the twain was long and dusty grey,
And like a spark that in the ashes lies,
Satiric laughter glinted in his eyes
And made his nose auroral with its ray:
The other like a huge black bird of prey,
His hat enorm, his pipe of awful size,
His coat hung empty-sleeved in careless wise,
Loomed a fat angel from the pit astray.
A voice was booming ever: laugh and jeer
Mingled with noble praise of battling right,
And verse and girls were mixed with radiant beer
And all the city tram was given sight
Of the invisible dark and bidden hear
Unsplashing silence of the pouring light.

by John Le Gay Brereton.

THE long white windows blankly stare
Across the sodden, tangled grass,
Weed-covered are the pathways where
No footsteps ever pass;
No whispers wake, no kisses die,
No laughter thrills the dwindling flowers,
Only the night hears sigh on sigh
From ghosts of long-dead hours.


None come here now to laugh or weep;
The spider spins on stair and hall,
And round the windows shadows creep,
And loathly creatures crawl.
Cold is the hearth; the door is fast;
No guest the silent threshold sees
Save ghosts out of the happy past,--
And one who is as these.

by Edith Nesbit.

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
No God, no demon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart, thou and I are here, sad and alone,
Say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! Forever must I moan
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain?
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease
My fancy to it's utmost blisses spreads
Yet would I on this very midnight cease
And all the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed
But death intenser, death is life's high meed.

by John Keats.

I wonder what the Jacks have got to laugh and laugh about.
I'm sure the worms don't see the joke when Jacky digs them out.
I wonder which is best: a rich plum-pudding stuffed with plums,
Or lemon ice, or plain boiled rice, or long-division sums.

I wonder why I wear a tie. It is not warm to wear;
But if I left it off someone would say it was not there.
I wonder, if I took a whiff of father's pipe for fun,
Would I be big and strong like him, or just his small, sick son?
I wonder when our old white hen will know her squawk betrays her.
I think she lets us find her eggs 'ust so that we shall praise her.

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,
And all the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser -- Death is Life's high meed.

by John Keats.

'Oh! Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped-In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,-'O Mother, -Mother, - Dad!'
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,-Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.

'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole faced kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.

by Wilfred Owen.

Over the man the street car ran,
And the driver did never grin.
'O killer of men, pray tell me when
Your laughter means to begin.

'Ten years to a day I've observed you slay,
And I never have missed before
Your jubilant peals as your crunching wheels
Were spattered with human gore.

'Why is it, my boy, that you smother your joy,
And why do you make no sign
Of the merry mind that is dancing behind
A solemner face than mine?'

The driver replied: 'I would laugh till I cried
If I had bisected you;
But I'd like to explain, if I can for the pain,
'T is myself that I've cut in two.'

by Ambrose Bierce.

A golden largesse from a store untold
Announced the ruddy day's imperial birth,
And woke a loyal world to jubilant mirth
And hopes that boasted, madly over-bold.
Shadow and thunder from a dull cloud rolled,
A shiver chilled the lately glittering firth,
As gloom set heavy hand upon the earth;
Yet look, on westward hills a gleam of gold.
You have laughed and bidden us laugh, O lord of jest;
You have wept and given us grief, O lonely friend;
And now we sit with silent lips and white,
And dream what craggy ways thou wanderest,
Not finding yet of hope or strife an end,
O soul set free from bondage of the night.

by John Le Gay Brereton.

I marked where lovely Venus and her court
With song and dance and merry laugh went by;
Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,
Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.
Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,
Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,
Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high
Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.
All this I saw in Spring. Through Summer heat
I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.
But when flushed Autumn through the woodlands went
I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:
Whom seeing, every harvester gave o'er
His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.

by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

His face was charged with beauty as a cloud
With glimmering lightning. When it shadowed me
I shook, and was uneasy as a tree
That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed.


So must I tempt that face to loose its lightning.
Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above,
Who made his beauty lovelier than love.
I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening.


And happier were it if my sap consume;
Glorious will shine the opening of my heart;
The land shall freshen that was under gloom;
What matter if all men cry aloud and start,
And women hide bleak faces in their shawl,
At those hilarious thunders of my fall?

by Wilfred Owen.

Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
For that old Madge comes down the lane,
A stone upon her breast,
And a cloak wrapped about the stone,
And she can get no rest
With singing hush and hush-a-bye;
She that has been wild
And barren as a breaking wave
Thinks that the stone's a child.

And Peter that had great affairs
And was a pushing man
Shrieks, 'I am King of the Peacocks,'
And perches on a stone;
And then I laugh till tears run down
And the heart thumps at my side,
Remembering that her shriek was love
And that he shrieks from pride.

by William Butler Yeats.

Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
Not for the people's praise;
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
Claiming us all our days,
Claiming our best endeavour -- body and heart and brain
Given with no reserve --
Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain:
Still, we are proud to serve.

Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
Gathering grain or chaff;
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
One, that a child may laugh.

Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place,
Freely she doth accord
Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace,
Work is its own reward!

by Banjo Paterson.

Sang the sun rise on an amber morn -
'Earth, be glad! An April day is born.

'Winter's done, and April's in the skies,
Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!'

Putting off her dumb dismay of snow,
Earth bade all her unseen children grow.

Then the sound of growing in the air
Rose to God a liturgy of prayer;

And the thronged succession of the days
Uttered up to God a psalm of praise.

Laughed the running sap in every vein,
Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,

Laughed the life in every wandering root,
Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.

God in all the concord of their mirth
Heard the adoration-song of Earth.

by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts.

CHIEF in thy generation born of men
Whom English praise acclaimed as English-born,
With eyes that matched the worldwide eyes of morn
For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then
When thoughts of children warmed their light, or when
Reverence of age with love and labour worn,
Or godlike pity fired with godlike scorn,
Shot through them flame that winged thy swift live pen:
Where stars and suns that we behold not burn,
Higher even than here, though highest was here thy place,
Love sees thy spirit laugh and speak and shine
With Shakespeare and the soft bright soul of Sterne
And Fielding’s kindliest might and Goldsmith’s grace j
Scarce one more loved or worthier love than thine.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

'What is that, mother?'
'The funny man, child.
His hands are black, but his heart is mild.'

'May I touch him, mother?'
''T were foolishly done:
He is slightly touched already, my son.'

'O, why does he wear such a ghastly grin?'
'That's the outward sign of a joke within.'

'Will he crack it, mother?'
'Not so, my saint;
'T is meant for the _Saturday Livercomplaint.'

'Does he suffer, mother?'
'God help him, yes!
A thousand and fifty kinds of distress.'

'What makes him sweat so?'
'The demons that lurk
In the fear of having to go to work.'

'Why doesn't he end, then, his life with a rope?'
'Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope.'

by Ambrose Bierce.

HENCE, rude Winter! crabbed old fellow,
Never merry, never mellow!
Well-a-day! in rain and snow
What will keep one’s heart aglow?
Groups of kinsmen, old and young,
Oldest they old friends among;
Groups of friends, so old and true
That they seem our kinsmen too;
These all merry all together
Charm away chill Winter weather.

What will kill this dull old fellow?
Ale that ’s bright, and wine that ’s mellow!
Dear old songs for ever new;
Some true love, and laughter too;
Pleasant wit, and harmless fun,
And a dance when day is done.
Music, friends so true and tried,
Whisper’d love by warm fireside,
Mirth at all times all together,
Make sweet May of Winter weather.

by Alfred Domett.

I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business,--just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.

by Emily Dickinson.

Years I had been from home,
And now, before the door
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, - just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.

by Emily Dickinson.

We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third. He who at love once laughed,
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion's bashful dawn
And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
When 'this' she said: went 'thus': most wondrous she.
Our eyes grow white, encountering that we are three,
Forgetful; then together we look down.
But he demands our blessing; is convinced
That words of wedded lovers must bring good.
We question; if we dare! or if we should!
And pat him, with light laugh. We have not winced.
Next, she has fallen. Fainting points the sign
To happy things in wedlock. When she wakes,
She looks the star that thro' the cedar shakes:
Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.

by George Meredith.

War's a joke for me and you,
Wile we know such dreams are true.
- Siegfried Sassoon

Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,-
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,-
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,-
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

by Wilfred Owen.

A timid child with heart oppressed
By images of sin,
I slunk into the bush for rest,
And found my fairy kin.

The fire I carried kept me warm:
The friendly air was chill.
The laggards of the lowing storm
Trailed gloom along the hill.

I watched the crawling monsters melt
And saw their shadows wane
As on my satin skin I felt
The fingers of the rain.

The sunlight was a golden beer,
I drank a magic draught;
The sky was clear and, void of fear,
I stood erect and laughed.

And sudden laughter, idly free,
About me trilled and rang,
And love was shed from every tree,
And little bushes sang.

The bay of conscience' bloody hound
That tears the world apart
Has never drowned the silent sound
Within my happy heart.

by John Le Gay Brereton.

Sometimes I laugh—what else can a man do
Who does not know ? This little ego here
Braving the void, this fleck upon the blue,
This filmy wing sounding the starry sphere—
What bold abysmal incongruity,
What joke of the gods to make a mock of me !

I hear you sing, and wonder how you dare.
Too fine for song they are—the tint of the rose,
The touch of a child, love's beauty and despair,
All the sad furtive exquisiteness that blows,
Like scent of gardens I may never see,
Across my sense to make a mock of me.

That I, this atom infinitesimal,
This chance-blown seed of flesh and fire, that I
Should front the dread immensity, the all,
Shocking the silence with my futile cry—
What dark inscrutable absurdity,
What joke of the gods to make a mock of me!

by Harriet Monroe.

I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess,
Waves mute appeal and sore,
Above the midriff's deep distress,
For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail Him Lord,
No raptured choirs proclaim,
And Nature's strenuous Overword
Hath nowhere breathed His Name.

Yet, it must be, on wayside jape,
The selfsame Power bestows
The selfsame power as went to shape
His Planet or His Rose.

by Rudyard Kipling.

(Eccl. VII,3) To ‘Uncle George Bromley

I hold not that sorrow than laughter
Is better for man;
The storm-clouds that darken the heavens
Than rainbows that span.
Ah! rather the skies in there shinning
Than dreary with rain, -
And the heart that is lightsome in gladness
Than heavy with pain.

There are thorns in the smoothest of pathways
Enough and to spare;
No wheat-field so carefully tended
That knows not the tare;
But the harvester gathers the harvest
In the gold of its sheaves,
And the briar is forgot of the branches
In the laugh of its leaves.

The voice in its merriment ringing
The laughter-bells clear!
May their melody linger about him,
And the seed he has sown
Of joy in the heart-fields of others
Find bloom in his own.

by Ina D. Coolbrith.

WE have been friends together,
In sunshine and in shade;
Since first beneath the chestnut-trees
In infancy we played.
But coldness dwells within thy heart,
A cloud is on thy brow;
We have been friends together—
Shall a light word part us now?

We have been gay together;
We have laugh’d at little jests;
For the fount of hope was gushing
Warm and joyous in our breasts.
But laughter now hath fled thy lip,
And sullen glooms thy brow;
We have been gay together—
Shall a light word part us now?

We have been sad together,
We have wept, with bitter tears,
O’er the grass-grown graves, where slumber’d
The hopes of early years.
The voices which are silent there
Would bid thee clear thy brow;
We have been sad together—
Oh! what shall part us now?

by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton.

WHEN the game began between them for a jest,
He played king and she played queen to match the best;
Laughter soft as tears, and tears that turned to laughter,
These were things she sought for years and sorrowed after.

Pleasure with dry lips, and pain that walks by night;
All the sting and all the stain of long delight;
These were things she knew not of, that knew not of her,
When she played at half a love with half a lover.

Time was chorus, gave them cues to laugh or cry;
They would kill, befool, amuse him, let him die;
Set him webs to weave to-day and break to-morrow,
Till he died for good in play, and rose in sorrow.

What the years mean; how time dies and is not slain;
How love grows and laughs and cries and wanes again;
These were things she came to know, and take their measure,
When the play was played out so for one man’s pleasure.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.

Her cheeks, with their happy blood,
Were pink as the apple-bud.

Her eyes, with their deep delight,
Were glad as the stars of night.

Her curls, with their romp and fun,
Were hoiden as wind and sun.

Her lips, with their laughter shrill,
Were wild as a woodland rill.

Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.

And I,-who leaned on the fence,
Watching her innocence,

As, under the boughs that bent,
Now high, now low, she went,

In her soul the ecstasies
Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze,-

Had given the rest of my years,
With their blessings, and hopes, and fears,

To have been as she was then;
And, just for a moment, again

A boy in the old rope-swing
Under the boughs of spring.

by Madison Julius Cawein.

Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.

He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.

To him love-making is an art,
And as a flutist plays a flute,
So does he play upon his heart

A music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine,
He would not have me answer him.

To hide my eyes within the night
I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam
Alternately with red and white.

My laughter smites upon my ears,
So one who cries and wakes from sleep
Knows not it is himself he hears.

What if my voice should let him know
The mocking words were all a sham,
And lips that laugh could tremble so?

What if I lost the power to lie,
And he should only hear his name
In one low, broken cry?

by Sara Teasdale.

He dropped, - more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
-just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
- Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.
'I'll do 'em in,' he whined. 'If this hand's spared,
I'll murder them, I will.'

A low voice said,
'It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone,
Dreaming of all the valiant, that aren't dead:
Bold uncles, smiling ministerially;
Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun
In some new home, improved materially.
It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun.'

We sent him down at last, out of the way.
Unwounded; - stout lad, too, before that strafe.
Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, 'Not half!'

Next day I heard the Doc's well-whiskied laugh:
'That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!'

by Wilfred Owen.

Maternity Hospital


Our sister sayeth such and such,
And we must bow to her behests.
Our sister toileth overmuch,
Our little maid that hath no breasts.

A field untilled, a web unwove,
A flower withheld from sun or bee,
An alien in the Courts of Love,
And--teacher unto such as we!

We love her, but we laugh the while,
We laugh, but sobs are mixed with laughter;
Our sister hath no time to smile,
She knows not what must follow after.

Wind of the South, arise and blow,
From beds of spice thy locks shake free;
Breathe on her heart that she may know,
Breathe on her eyes that she may see!

Alas! we vex her with our mirth,
And maze her with most tender scorn,
Who stands beside the Gates of Birth,
Herself a child--a child unborn!

Our sister sayeth such and such,
And we must bow to her behests.
Our sister toileth overmuch,
Our little maid that hath no breasts.

by Rudyard Kipling.

Dear Comrade: In the game of politics
A Senator gits quite enough of kicks
Without 'is photer sittin' in the press
Wot makes 'is map look like a nasty mess
A pitcher that present 'im to the mob
A fair gazob.

Me, I ain't vain, but it is past a joke
To go an' print a crook dile of a bloke
So that the mob sez, 'Is this Digger? Struth!
'E's changed a good bit since 'is flamin' youth.
We thort 'e was a better lookin' chap.
Strike! Wot a man!'

Why make me look like somethin' choice in crooks?
For, if I ain't got nothin' but me looks,
Why, gimme looks, an' bung a photer in
That gives me sex-appeal a dinkum spin
I ain't - (For w'ich remark 'e'll please excuse)
No Billy Hughes.

An' so, I sends 'erewith me dinkum chiv -
The dinkum Digger, w'ich I 'ope you'll give
A bit o' space to 'elp along your sales
An' mind you say I come from Noo South Wales!
That ought to fetch 'em. So you play your part,
An' 'ave a 'eart.

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

We have a joke whenever we meet,
Clara and I;
Prattle and laughter, and kisses sweet,
Clara and I.
Were I but twenty, and not two score,
Clara and I would laugh still more,
With plenty of hopeful years in store
For Clara and I, Clara and I;
With plenty of hopeful years in store
For Clara and I.

We will be true as Damascus steel,
Clara and I;
Sealing our truth with a honied seal,
Clara and I.
Eyes so loving, and lips of rose,
Cheeks where the dainty ripe peach grows,
And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose
At Clara and I, Clara and I;
And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose
At Clara and I.

We have a kiss whenever we part,
Clara and I;
Grasping of hand, and flutter of heart,
Clara and I.
Were she but twenty, and not sixteen,
Over my love she'd reign the queen,

And no fair rival should come between
My Clara and I, Clara and I;
And no fair rival should come between
My Clara and I.

by Charles Sangster.

You sleep upon your mother's breast,
Your race begun,
A welcome, long a wished-for Guest,
Whose age is One.

A Baby-Boy, you wonder why
You cannot run;
You try to talk - how hard you try! -
You're only One.

Ere long you won't be such a dunce:
You'll eat your bun,
And fly your kite, like folk who once
Were only One.

You'll rhyme and woo, and fight and joke,
Perhaps you'll pun!
Such feats are never done by folk
Before they're One.

Some day, too, you may have your joy,
And envy none;
Yes, you, yourself, may own a Boy,
Who isn't One.

He'll dance, and laugh, and crow; he'll do
As you have done:
(You crown a happy home, though you
Are only One.)

But when he's grown shall you be here
To share his fun,
And talk of times when he (the Dear!)
Was hardly One?

Dear Child, 'tis your poor lot to be
My little Son;
I'm glad, though I am old, you see, -
While you are One.

by Frederick Locker-Lampson.

Because to him the wise gods gave
Rare gifts, to lesser folk denied,
He might have thriven, Mammon's slave,
Rich in the goods that small men crave,
But poor in all beside.

And yet, because his was the pride
Possessed by earnest men and brave,
He stayed by his weak brothers' side
And there he fought, loved, laughed and died,
And went, loved, to his grave.

Because his was the simple heart
That found small lure in pelf or praise,
For greater ends he plied his art,
And, asking little, played his part
A rich man all his days.

The simple heart, the single aim
That guided e'er his ready pen,
The gay indifference to Fame
Things such as these shall leave a name
Cherished 'mid fellow men.

And we who knew that steady gaze,
The open hand, the ready laugh,
The fighting face and kindly ways,
Know, too, his smiling scorn of praise.
Yet this for epitaph:

A fighter all his days was he,
Yet, dying, left no enemy.

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.