I WROTE some lines once on a time

    In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say

    They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,

    I laughed as I would die;

Albeit, in the general way,

    A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;

    How kind it was of him,

To mind a slender man like me,

    He of the mighty limb!

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,

    And, in my humorous way,

I added (as a trifling jest),

    "There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,

    And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face

    Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,

    And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise

    I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;

    The fifth; his waistband split;

The sixth; he burst five buttons off,

    And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,

    I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

    As funny as I can.

William Cullen Byrant, ed., The Family Library of Poetry

and Song (New York: Fords, Howard and Hulbert, 1886) 879.