Two Jokes about Tea

 

 

While the Hawker's Pot is full of tea, may I take the opportunity to recommend the rather splendid breakfast-related punning names of the Contributors to the London Review of Breakfasts (whose Malcolm Eggs I met at the Cheltenham Literature Festival today).

A Brush with Death, or

 

Death with a Brush.

Poets with their latest breath

Speak fearfully of dusty death.

Not dusty now, for round the tomb

Here comes Death pushing his broom.

Some dream of skeletons that clasp

Fainting maidens in their grasp.

But  Death has other things in mind:
It is their besoms his fingers find.

The rich man in his palace,

The poor man in his hovel,

Death will find out every one

And sweep them on his shovel.

And lo! as, sat in triumph, I

Grow pale as Death comes sweeping by,

And, in the sickbed’s midnight hush,

Hear Death approach pushing his brush.

Both meek and strong, so fare we all

To God’s small acre.

Where Death shall take away our care.

(He is the caretaker.)

_______________________________

Next Week: Death and the Midden