And, if you please, I'd rather lie as long as I like in bed;
So bother the knots and garlands, mother, and all the foolish play,
If we're to have fires in May, mother, why—we must have fires in May.
Punch, May 28, 1881.
The following parody appeared originally in a clever little Cambridge University Magazine, entitled Light Green, which has long been out of print. Light Green contained many excellent parodies, notable amongst them being:—The May Exam., after Tennyson; The Song of the Shirk, after Hood; The Heathen Pass-ee, after Bret Harte; and The Vulture and the Husbandman, after Lewis Carroll. These, with several other amusing pieces of poetry, have been reprinted in a small pamphlet, which can be obtained from W. Metcalfe and Son, Trinity-street, Cambridge.
THE MAY EXAM.
(By Alfred Pennysong).
"Semper floreat
Poeta Laureate."—HORACE.