No More Learning

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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-Bo
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

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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.