The Joke

A Hungarian humorist and world traveller, appraising us on the wing, so to speak, declares that Australians have no sense of humor, and never will have until they have suffered greatly.

He was a foreign jester
Who loved his little joke
And slyly sought to pester
The simple Aussie bloke;
He said ’twas but a rumor,
Our vaunted sense of humor,
Our native flair for fun.
He said that we must suffer
A grievous fate and rougher
Than hitherto we’d done
Ere ever we could savor
A merry jest’s full flavor;
And whether he spoke truth, or merely chaffed,
Recalling other pictures,
Of critics and their strictures,
The little Aussie laughed, and laughed
and laughed.

The simple-minded Aussie,
Remembering bygone jeers
And criticisms mossy
That plague him thro’ the years,
Found it a shade confusing,
Tho’ certainly amusing,
This queer conflicting talk
Of travellers who judge us,
Yet never seem to budge us
From the dull ways we walk.
And now this foreign buffer
Declares that we must suffer,
And, till full many a bitter cup be quaffed,
We make a sorry bloomer
To think that we have humor.
And little Aussie laughed, and laughed
and laughed.

They criticise our fiction:
’Tis dreary, doleful stuff.
Our accent, like our diction,
Is raucous, crude and rough.
They’ve said we worship money;
We find it rather funny
When others rise to snort
We’re feather-brained and feckless,
Too prodigal and reckless
And over-fond of sport.
But we are not complaining,
The joke is entertaining.
Each grave globe-trotter’s rapidly aimed shaft
Has somehow failed to grieve us.
They come, they scold, they leave us,
And little Aussies laughed, and laughed
and laughed.

The old world’s sense of humor,
Born ’mid the old world’s hate,
’Mid strife and warlike rumor,
May triumph over Fate.
But we seek lighter laughter
Than that which follows after
The pains of the oppressed;
Than mordant wit pursuing
Dark griefs of great ill-doing—
We crave a kindlier jest.
And now this jovial fellow
Evolves a joke more mellow
Than all the others, to uphold his craft.
He said that we must suffer
Or else remain a duffer,
But little Aussie laughed, and laughed
and laughed.