Groucho's Poem From the Play "Animal Crackers"

When we did "Animal Crackers" we needed two minutes for a change - a scenery change - so I wrote a ridiculous poem. And I always think of whether the audiences really listens to the actor on the stage. I wrote the most ridiculous poem, you could possibly write, and tried it on the audience. And the first three weeks we did the show, we used to get a sophisticated New York audience, and they used to laugh and they used to applaud at the end. Then we started to get the out-of-towners, people from the middle west, and they thought I were serious. Here's the way it goes:
  Did you ever sit and ponder, as you walk along the strand,
that life's a bitter battle at the best.
And if you only knew it you would lend a helping hand,
then every man could meet the final test.
The world is but a stage, my friend, and life's but a game,
and how you play is all that matters in the end.
But whether a man is right or wrong, a woman gets the blame,
and your mother is your dog's best friend.
Then up came mighty Casey, and strode up to the bat,
and Sheridan was fifty miles away.
For it takes a heap of loving to make a home like that,
on the road to where the flying fishes play.
Then I used to take a chair, which the vaudeville actors used to do in those days, and I would start walking off the stage, and the last line would be:

So be a real life Pagliac'
and laugh, Clown, laugh.

Source

Fate, The Jester

by Arthur Guiterman

 The planets are bells on his motley,
   He fleers at the stars in their state,
He banters the suns burning hotly -
   The Jester whose nickname is Fate.

The lanterns that kindle their rays with
   The comets, are food for his mirth;
But, oh, how he laughs as he plays with
   His mad little bauble, the Earth

He looks on the atomies crowding
   The face of our pitiful ball;
His form in the nebulae shrouding,
   He chuckles, unnoted of all

The valorous puppets that chatter
   Superbly of Little and Great.
A flip of his finger would shatter
   The dreams of these "Masters of Fate" -


He laughs at their strivings and rages
   And tosses the murmurant sphere
To bowl through the zodiac-stages
   That measure the groove of a Year.

He laughs as he trips up the maddest
   Who scramble for power and place,
But laughs with the bravest and gladdest -
   Fate's comrades, who laugh in his face;

Who laugh at themselves and their troubles
   Whatever the beaker they quaff;
Who, laughing at Vanity's bubbles,
   Forget not to love as they laugh;

Who laugh in the teeth of disaster,
   Yet hope through the darkness to find
A road past the stars to a Master
   Of Fate in the vastness behind.

Source

Jester Envy

From William Shakespeare's As You Like It (c. 1600), Act II, Scene VII

JACQUES
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

DUKE SENIOR
What fool is this?

JACQUES
O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,
And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIOR
Thou shalt have one.

JACQUES
It is my only suit;
Provided that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion that grows rank in them
That I am wise. I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have;
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
The 'why' is plain as way to parish church:
He that a fool doth very wisely hit
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
The wise man's folly is anatomized
Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
Invest me in my motley; give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.