A favourite 'beachcombing'

It's been in my head (on my mind?) to include this for a while, a fabulous piece of whimsy from one of my boyhood literary heroes, J.B. Morton, one of the greatest of all English humourists.

Morton had a recurring fascination with the comic possibilities of cabmen: arguably his crowning achievement was the 'Directory of Huntingdonshire Cabmen', an irregular feature in his rag-bag funny column 'By The Way', which ran for over 50 years in The Daily Express; the 'Directory' was nothing more than a list of names - for the most part, not even particularly remarkable names - and yet, in the context of the column, it somehow became irresistibly, excruciatingly funny.

Many of Morton's fans, however, consider this to be his finest moment:

The Dancing Cabman

Alone on the lawn
The cabman dances
In the dew of dawn he kicks and prances
His bowler is set on his bullet head
For his boots are wet and his aunt is dead.

There on the lawn
As the light advances
On the tide of the dawn
The cabman dances.

Swift and strong as a garden roller
He dances along in his little bowler
Skimming the lawn with royal grace
The dew of dawn on his great red face
To fairy flutes as the light advances
In square black boots the cabman dances.