The Family Fool.

Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,     If you listen to popular rumor;     From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,     And he bubbles with wit and good-humor!     He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse;     Yet though people forgive his transgression,     There are one or two rules that all Family Fools     Must observe, if they love their profession.     There are one or two rules     Half a dozen, maybe,     That all family fools,     Of whatever degree,     Must observe, if they love their profession.     If you wish to succeed as a jester, you'll need     To consider each person auricular:     What is all right for B would quite scandalize C     (For C is so very particular);     And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull     Is as empty of brains as a ladle;     While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp,     That he's known your best joke from his cradle!     When your humor they flout,     You can't let yourself go;     And it does put you out     When a person says, "Oh!     I have known that old joke from my cradle!"     If your master is surly, from getting up early     (And tempers are short in the morning),     An inopportune joke is enough to provoke     Him to give you, at once, a month's warning     Then if you refrain, he is at you again,     For he likes to get value for money.     He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare,     If you know that you're paid to be funny?"     It adds to the task     Of a merryman's place,     When your principal asks,     With a scowl on his face,     If you know that you're paid to be funny?"     Comes a Bishop, maybe, or a solemn D.D.     Oh, beware of his anger provoking!     Better not pull his hair don't stick pins in his chair;     He don't understand practical joking.     If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack,     You may get a bland smile from these sages;     But should it, by chance, be imported from France,     Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!     It's a general rule,     Though your zeal it may quench,     If the Family Fool     Makes a joke that's too French,     Half-a-crown is stopped out of his wages!     Though your head it may rack with a bilious attack,     And your senses with toothache you're losing,     Don't be mopy and flat they don't fine you for that,     If you're properly quaint and amusing!     Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day,     And took with her your trifle of money;     Bless your heart, they don't mind they're exceedingly kind     They don't blame you as long as you're funny!     It's a comfort to feel     If your partner should flit,     Though you suffer a deal,     They don't mind it a bit     They don't blame you so long as you're funny!