 | Rhymes with reason and without |  |
LI.
TO MY FRIEND PETER.
I say, you rattling, hair-brained, funny Peter,Well do you shake us with your many follies,
Driving forth from us all our melancholies,
With jovial exorcisms in prose and metre,—
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How could we find our way along without you,
With all your oddities so thick about you,
And rare fun beaming out from every featur'?
None in the fields of humor are completer
Than you, my ever-ready pungent Snooks,—
Though more a puncheon in your rotund looks;
True wit ne'er scintillates from any neater.
Salt keeps our meat and metre all the sweeter;
Attic 's the salt, and you are all salt, Peter.
| Rhymes with reason and without | |