Oliver Wendell Holmes’s speaker tells a tall tale about the time his own comic verse nearly killed a man. In a fit of good humor, he writes some lines he thinks are brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny, then hands them to his burly servant with a joking warning. As the servant reads, his amusement escalates catastrophically: grinning, chuckling, roaring, until his clothes burst and he collapses. The poet watches over him for ten agonizing days, and the experience scares him away from ever writing at full comic strength again. The poem’s mood is wry and self-mocking, blending slapstick exaggeration with a deadpan delivery. The speaker’s feelings veer from proud delight to horrified responsibility, leaving us with a gentle wink about the perilous power of a good joke.
The Height of the Ridiculous — Summary
I WROTE some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood, And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I.
I called my servant, and he came; How kind it was of him To mind a slender man like me, He of the mighty limb.
"These to the printer," I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way, I added, (as a trifling jest,) "There'll be the devil to pay."
He took the paper, and I watched, And saw him peep within; At the first line he read, his face Was all upon the grin.
He read the next; the grin grew broad, And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth; his waistband split; The sixth; he burst five buttons off, And tumbled in a fit.
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.