Here meets rebuffs and crosses.
Jokes are like trees; their place of birth
Best suits them; stuck in foreign earth,
They perish in the process.

Ah! Merriment! when men entrap
Thy bells, and women steal thy cap,
They think they have trepann'd thee.
Delusive thought! aloof and dumb,
Thou wilt not at a bidding come,
Though Royalty command thee.

The rich, who sigh for thee--the great,
Who court thy smiles with gilded plate,
But clasp thy cloudy follies:
I've known thee turn, in Portman-square,
From Burgundy and Hock, to share
A pint of Port at Dolly's.

Races at Ascot, tours in Wales,
White-bait at Greenwich ofttimes fail,
To wake thee from thy slumbers.
E'en now, so prone art thou to fly,
Ungrateful nymph! thou'rt fighting shy
Of these narcotic numbers.

_Ibid_.

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