My guffaw comes from Marcus, but that just goes to show, doesn't it?

I enjoyed them both, John, but Ann probably hadn't seen Marcus's piece - she and he both posted at 9:51.

(1) Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.
…
One, two! One, two! And through and through
Its talons slashed and wide maw gnashed!
It left him dead, and with his head
To munch on, back it dashed.

“And hast thou slain my beamish boy?”
He quoke in terror as it neared,
Its nostrils bent on their home-scent:
“’Tis just as I had feared!”

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Were gathered up and swallowed whole:
Next courses? Potage Borogoves,
And the Mome Raths Casserole.


[‘He quoke’ is no typo but a spelling intended to combine ‘quaked’ and ‘spoke’.]

Excellent, Graham! I'm having trouble thinking of a piece suitable for the treatment, but you've hit on a good one.

Very nice, Graham. I've been trying a 'Snark' myself but can't yet get it to work. In the meantime I offer this:

AND did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

It’s likely that the answer’s ‘no’,
Or so I would have thought. JC’s
Agenda would have been too full
To go on jollies overseas.

A trip to Britain in those days
Was pretty hard. They hadn’t yet
Invented package holidays,
Bureaux de change or EasyJet.


Still needs a polish and probably a fourth stanza.

It's good Rob, but Blake's done the entire first stanza for you. It won't beat Bill G. that way.

.

The Mariner shuts up at last;
His eye is bleak and rheumy;
His senile stance, his countenance
Impenetrably gloomy.

The wedding-guest is sorely pressed,
And irked by pointless chatter.
‘Look here, old chap, this rambling crap
Won’t fill a single platter.

I’m making lunch for quite a bunch;
The guests are getting stroppy.
I’ve heard your story, sometimes gory,
Sometimes rather soppy;

Your tale was fun, but I must run -
The cooks are at a loss.
I’m needed there to help prepare
The roasted Albatross.’

Oh wonderful, Brian.

VANITY FAIR

The money was paid and Becky’s character established.

Colonel Dobbin, glad of his share, paid off the little Ranee of Shagpur with whom he had co-habited in India while waiting for Emmy’s father to die, for who would not have found that gentleman a horrible charge on his funds.

Sir Pitt took a stroke on learning of Rawdon’s KCMG, though His Excellency only lasted months longer, leaving Becky the Crawley fortune, title and status as a widow of Empire. Young Rawdon and George are become Prinny’s louche hangers-on in Bath, competing for the favours of Lady Lade, while Emmy has found the Colonel fonder of his Punjabi housemaids and dull enough that she now understands why George became a rake out of pure boredom.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is fairly treated in this world? Come readers, let us sack all these puppets….. for my ink has run out!

Dorothy Sayer's Translation of Dante's Inferno

In Soho there’s a pub - an underground,
xxAs far from Oxford’s spires, as Dante’s deep -
xxNot fit for sight but giving off such sound,

That Harriet and Peter could not keep
xxFrom following its clamour’s Gallic fall,
xxWhose dying strain made Bunter’s shirtfront creep.

That was the place my cast and I have all
xxLeft for the literary world and hence
xxI’ve dragged us up and, heeding Virgil’s call,

I’ve laboured at translating every tense
xxOf that most famous Hell – and now all bars
xxAre shut! Yet Purgatory beckons! Hence

I’ll leave that pair in Hell. Go, kiss my arse!