Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown,
Uprose the Doctor’s winsome marrow;
The lady laid her knitting down,
Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow;
Whate’er the stranger’s caste or creed,
Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner,
He found a stable for his steed,
And welcome for himself, and dinner.
If, when he reached his journey’s end,
And warm’d himself in Court or College,
He had not gained an honest friend,
And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,—
If he departed as he came,
With no new light on love and liquor,—
Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,
And not the Vicarage, or the Vicar.
His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipt from politics to puns,
It pass’d from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.
