From Cricketing vainly would wean us
With diagrams, even of Venus.
We rather would watch a good bowler
Than Bears, be they little or Polar;
And bar, though of masculine genus,
Wise talk on the Transit of Venus.
When Ladies at Lords saunter gaily
With Parsons (not musing on Paley),
Old friend of my boyhood, between us,
Then, then is the Transit of Venus!