BALLOONS ARE BEST

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22515, 24 September 1938, Page 23

BALLOONS ARE BEST

In homage to the twenty-sixth Gordon Bennett Balloon Raee, which began lately in Belgium,' and furnished the only cheerful item in the general gloom of overseas news. [By WHIM WHAM.] \

O give me a balloon A globular Balloon And let me float a thousand miles away, * Defying Gravitation, The Burden of Taxation And Europe getting madder every day. The Germans and the Czechs Will crane their jealous necks To see my buoyant basket disappear; And I shall find release From cares of War and Peace A little way above the Stratosphere. As light as any Feather In Stratospheric weather. Like an enormous Onion on the wing. My bulbous ship will ride With ballast well supplied Above the tumult and the clamouring: How happily. Pit dangle Above the row and wrangle. The Crisis, the Disorders, and the Scare! Without a Radio To hear the fuss below And Parliament bewildering the Air, , We should have been contented When Genius invented The harmless, bombless, engineless balloont Our skies would not be black With danger of Attach And bombers roaring at the quiet Moon: The honest Gasbag packs No Gun or bombing racks; Formation flying isn’t in its.line: Not suitable for War Its portly form is more Bulky than businesslike in its design.

My Heart is with the men Of Hope and fiydrogen Who float above the European Scene: The Gas they carry is For blameless purposes (Not Poison, if you follow what / mean). Our Rude Forefathers flew With every wind that blew And bobbed about serenely in the sky; And that, / would suggest Is certainly the best, . The safest, and the Only way to.fly: So bring me a balloon A billowing Balloon, And fill it with the gas that makes it go; And people will declare, “That’s Whim Wham in the Air A-swinging in his basket to and fro!* *