Sixth Critic.
"A mass of folly more intense
Experience can't recall.
We tried to find one shred of sense.
There is not one at all!"
[Exit Author, tearing his hair.
THE SONG OF THE SLUGGARD.
["A medical contemporary (The British Medical Journal) asserts that 'The desire to rise early, except in those trained from youth to outdoor pursuits, is commonly a sign, not of strength of character and vigour of body, but of advancing age.'"—Daily Telegraph.]
'Twas the voice of the sluggard, I heard him hooray
As he turned in his bed at the dawning of day;
"At last early rising—that fraud—is found out!
Henceforth prigs will leave me alone, I've no doubt!
"They've preached at me ever since Solomon's time,
And no doubt before it, in prose and in rhyme.
Yet truth will prevail, and now Science hath said
That for early morning there's no place like bed!
"With their early to bed and their early to rise,
They've tortured the good, and tormented the wise.
In sermons, and spelling-books, proverbs and tracts,
And now they just find they've mistaken the facts!
"It's just like those moralists! Talk stilted bosh
For an æon or two, and then find it won't wash!
Lord! how they have stuck up their noses, the prigs,
And compared us to sloths and to somnolent pigs.
"What price now the ant, and that huge bore the bee?
Whilst our old foe, the lark, proves pure fiddle-de-dee.
Their healthy, and wealthy, and wise, and what not,
Is exploded at last; it is all tommy-rot!