AN OPEN QUESTION.
“It is the king’s highway, that we are in, and in this way it is that thou hast placed the lions.”—Bunyan.
HAT! shut the gardens! lock the latticed gate!
Refuse the shilling and the fellow’s ticket!
And hang a wooden notice up to state,
“On Sundays no admittance at this wicket!”
The birds, the beasts, and all the reptile race
Denied to friends and visitors till Monday!
Now, really, this appears the common case
Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
The Gardens,—so unlike the ones we dub
Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses,—
Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub,—
Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses?
No ale is vended at the wild Deer’s Head,—
Nor rum—nor gin—not even of a Monday—
The Lion is not carved—or gilt—or red,
And does not send out porter of a Sunday—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
The bear denied! the leopard under locks!
As if his spots would give contagious fevers;
The beaver close as hat within its box;
So different from other Sunday beavers!
The birds invisible—the gnaw-way rats—
The seal hermetically seal’d till Monday—
The monkey tribe—the family of cats,—
We visit other families on Sunday—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What is the brute profanity that shocks
The super-sensitively serious feeling?
The kangaroo—is he not orthodox
To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling?
Was strict Sir Andrew, in his sabbath coat,
Struck all a heap to see a Coati Mundi?
Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note
The pelicans presenting bills on Sunday?—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What feature has repulsed the serious set?
What error in the bestial birth or breeding,
To put their tender fancies on the fret?
One thing is plain—it is not in the feeding!
Some stiffish people think that smoking joints
Are carnal sins ’twixt Saturday and Monday—
But then the beasts are pious on these points,
For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What change comes o’er the spirit of the place,
As if transmuted by some spell organic?
Turns fell hyæna of the ghoulish race?
The snake, pro tempore, the true Satanic?
Do Irish minds,—(whose theory allows
That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday)—
Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows
Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday—
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?