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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WELCOME TO MARK TWAIN, by LOUIS FRECHETTE
First Line: Come, sing, my muse, our honoured guest
Last Line: With fine old english humour!
Subject(s): Humorists; Laughter; Twain, Mark (samuel Langhorne Clemens)
First Line: Come, sing, my muse, our honoured guest
Last Line: With fine old english humour!
Subject(s): Humorists; Laughter; Twain, Mark (samuel Langhorne Clemens)
Come, sing, my Muse, our honoured Guest—
Before the toasts are started—
Of all philosophers the best,
Because the lightest hearted.
He well deserves a golden rhyme
To-night, and oft hereafter,
Who roused, while laughing at his time,
Its sympathetic laughter.
Life's dearest charm in laughter lies,
And, if this creed were common,
The universe would scarce comprise
A sulky man or woman.
To laugh is man's divinest art:
And—loud, or gayly chaffing—
The truest echo from the heart
Of either sex is—laughing.
Let us then banish from our feast
All thoughts of melancholy,
And glorify the quaint high priest
Of fancy, fun and folly.
Thy health, Mark Twain! Of wits like thee
I would there were a few more,
To temper subtle French esprit
With fine old English humour!
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A DOUBLE-BARRELLED SONNET TO MARK TWAIN: 2. SECOND BARREL by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
THE AMERICAN JOKE (READ AT THE BIRTHDAY DINNER TO S.L. CLEMENS) by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
MARK TWAIN AND JOAN OF ARC by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY
TO MARK TWAIN by HENRY VAN DYKE
WHEN THE MISSISSIPPI FLOWED IN INDIANA by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY
AUTHORS' RESIDENCES by JOHN UPDIKE