A Lyric Hysteric.

If all the world laughed once a day,
War and woe would wither away,
Greed and grab and grumpetting, too,
Would hit the highway into the blue;
Existence indeed would be O.K.
If all the world laughed once a day.
None of your wintry smirks we pray,
But something sonorous once a day;
A Jovian jape from the seat of joy,
A Herculanean hobbledehoy,
A bumper of benediction gay,
Is what we want from the world each day.
Pessimists, pounding their doctrines grey,
Ought to be Made to laugh each day;
Misery-makers who gloom and glug,
Ought to get months and months in jug;
A law should be—and this we say,
That each mother's son must laugh each day.
Or else the proper penalty pay,
In durance vile each night and day
For a month of Sundays or even three,
Receiving instruction in jollity,
And tickled with feathers and bits of hay,
Until they learn to laugh each day.