MIDI File

Girls.

Tabor and drum!

Mummers have come!

Hey for their mummery,

Frolic and flummery!

For to my dull

Countrified skull

Nothing sublunary

Equals buffoonery!

Folks of our kind

Frequently find

Jokes that are sensible

Incomprehensible.

Here, I admit,

Genuine wit,

As a commodity,

Ranks below oddity.

As a commodity,

Ranks below oddity.

Come, strike up, Mister Merryman, while I inform the universe,

In metrical and tuny verse —

In metrical and tuny verse —

That here’s an exhibition that is highly intellectual —

To see it we expect you all —

To see it we expect you all.

Come, empty all your pockets, for I’m not a common mountebank,

I’ve money in the County Bank —

He’s money in the County Bank.

And I can give you value for your coppers insignificant —

And I’ll return ’em if I can’t —

And he’ll return ’em if he can’t.

Though I’m a buffoon, recollect

I command your respect!

I cannot for money

Be vulgarly funny,

My object’s to make you reflect!

True humour’s a matter in which

I’m exceedingly rich.

It ought to delight you,

Although, at first sight, you

May not recognize it as sich.

Other clowns make you laugh till you sink,

When they tip you a wink;

With attitude antic,

They render you frantic —

I don’t. I compel you to think!

For, oh, this is a world of insincerity and trouble,

And joy is imbecility and happiness a bubble,

And you’re a lot of butterflies who flutter through a summer,

And he’s a mountebank, and I’m a miserable mummer!

It’s possible the world is insincerity and trouble,

And happiness, for all I know, is nothing but a bubble;

Perhaps we may be butterflies who flutter through a summer,

And you’re, without a doubt, a very miserable mummer!

I’ve a dance

That came from France

Not long ago —

It’s worthy of your silver and your copper.

It’s my own

And I alone

Its mazes know —

It’s graceful and particularly proper.

I assist

As soloist,

Upon a squeeze,

On the trumpet and the kettledrum sonorous.

I’ve a song

That’s just as long

As you may please —

Twenty verses, and each verse has got a chorus!

Now that’s the kind of merriment you ought to set before us;

Only fancy — twenty verses, and each verse has got a chorus.

To such an entertainment we could listen for a summer;

But save us from the humour of this melancholy mummer!