Not just a funny man, He wrote some very subtle little fables. I remember at a songwriting workshop at a festival Anne Lister told us one of these from a book of his and invited us to think about it as making a song, and I was prompted to do so:

A Sailor's Dream
A sailor, a sailor so far from his home
On a misty green island was cast all alone.
And he built him a fire, and he built him a boat
Home again, home again, someday I'll float
But he never came home, no he never came homw,
He never came home from the sea.

For in searching the island he found a great tree,
It was tall as a mast on his ship on the sea.
So this sailorman climbed, as a sailor would do.
High over the island where the purple fruit grew.
"Will I eat of the fruit, will I eat of the fruit,
Yes, I'll eat of the fruit of the tree.

And down from the tree and so eager to eat,
And the rind it was bitter, but the fruit it was sweet.
And he fellin a sleep and he fell in a dream,