Laughable Lyrics

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Title: Laughable Lyrics
Author: Edward Lear
Release Date: October 8, 2004 [eBook #13649]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LAUGHABLE LYRICS***
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LAUGHABLE LYRICS
A Fourth Book of Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music, etc.
by
EDWARD LEAR
Author of the Book of Nonsense_, _More Nonsense,
Nonsense Songs,

Stories, etc., etc.
With all the Original Illustrations
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
LAUGHABLE LYRICS
THE DONG WITH A LUMINOUS NOSE
THE TWO OLD
BACHELORS
THE PELICAN CHORUS
THE
YONGHY-BONGHY-Bò
THE POBBLE WHO HAS NO TOES

THE NEW VESTMENTS
MR. AND MRS. DISCOBBOLOS

THE QUANGLE WANGLE'S HAT
THE CUMMERBUND

THE AKOND OF SWAT
NONSENSE BOTANY
" ALPHABET, No. 5
" " No. 6
LAUGHABLE LYRICS.
THE DONG WITH A LUMINOUS NOSE.
[Illustration]
When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian
plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;
When the angry breakers roar

As they beat on the rocky shore;
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the
Chankly Bore,--
Then, through the vast and gloomy dark
There moves what seems a

fiery spark,--
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night,--
A
Meteor strange and bright:
Hither and thither the vision strays,
A single lurid light.
Slowly it wanders, pauses, creeps,--
Anon it sparkles, flashes, and
leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the
Bong-tree stems it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight
hour
From Hall or Terrace or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light
passes along,--
"The Dong! the Dong!
The wandering Dong through the forest goes!

The Dong! the Dong!
The Dong with a luminous Nose!"
Long years ago
The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love
with a Jumbly Girl
Who came to those shores one day.
For the
Jumblies came in a sieve, they did,--
Landing at eve near the
Zemmery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
And the rocks are smooth and gray.

And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily
and nightly sang,--
"_Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea
in a sieve._"
Happily, happily passed those days!
While the cheerful Jumblies
staid;
They danced in circlets all night long,
To the plaintive pipe of
the lively Dong,
In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he
was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her
sky-blue hands and her sea-green hair;
Till the morning came of that
hateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,
And the

Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing, gazing for evermore,--

Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far
horizon,--
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sate all day on the
grassy hill,--
"_Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea
in a sieve_."
But when the sun was low in the West,
The Dong arose and said,--
"What little sense I once possessed
Has quite gone out of my head!"
And since that day he wanders still

By lake and forest, marsh and hill,
Singing, "O somewhere, in
valley or plain,
Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
For ever I'll
seek by lake and shore
Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!"
Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
Since then his Jumbly Girl he
seeks;
And because by night he could not see,
He gathered the bark
of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows.
And he
wove him a wondrous Nose,--
A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back
of his head.
In a hollow rounded space it ended
With a luminous Lamp within
suspended,
All fenced about
With a bandage stout
T o prevent the wind from blowing it out;

And with holes all round to send the light
In gleaming rays on the
dismal night

And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams
the Dong;
And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe
You may
hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe,
While ever