POETRY.
WIT AND HUMOUR.
You ask me how to limit Wit, How shall I say, not having it ?
Who shall declare the bite of salt, Or analyze the smack of malt, Or say what palate-ticklers are In olive and in caviare?
Yet this, perchance, you'll not dispute,—
That true Wit has in Truth its root, Surprise its flower, Delight its fruit.
Or haply, this may be more clear, The pirouette of an Idea ; Which, just as you conclude your grasp, Slips laughing from your empty clasp, Presenting in strange combination Some ludicrous association ; Which you repel with indignation, But cannot find its confutation :— I know no other image fit To tell you what I mean by Wit.
But if you are not yet content, And still on Definition bent, You ask me what may Humour be, I answer, "What's Humanity ?"
Word me the taste of Rhenish wine, The violet's perfume strict define, Exact the petals of the rose As with a thousand hues she glows, Count all the sparkles of the gem That flashes in the diadem, Or sum the subtlety of glance That lights thy lov'd one's countenance, And when the whole of this is done, What Humour is—is not begun. W. M. A.
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