Again, ’t was Christmas Eve, and to enhance
His children’s pleasure in their harmless rollicking,
He, like a good old fellow, stood to dance;
When something checked the current of his frolicking:
That curate, with a maid he treated lover-ly,
Stood up and figured with him in the “Coverley!”
Once, yielding to an universal choice
(The company’s demand was an emphatic one,
For the old Bishop had a glorious voice),
In a quartet he joined—an operatic one.
Harmless enough, though ne’er a word of grace in it,
When, lo! that curate came and took the bass in it!
One day, when passing through a quiet street,
He stopped awhile and joined a Punch’s gathering;
And chuckled more than solemn folk think meet,
To see that gentleman his Judy lathering;
And heard, as Punch was being treated penalty,
That phantom curate laughing all hyænally.
Now at a picnic, ’mid fair golden curls,
Bright eyes, straw hats, bottines that fit amazingly,
A croquêt-bout is planned by all the girls;
And he, consenting, speaks of croquêt praisingly;
But suddenly declines to play at all in it—
The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it!
Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed
From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,
He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,
In manner anything but hierarchical—
He sees—and fixes an unearthly stare on it—
That curate’s face, with half a yard of hair on it!
At length he gave a charge, and spake this word:
“Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may;
To check their harmless pleasuring’s absurd;
What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may.”
He spake, and lo! at this concluding word of him,
The curate vanished—no one since has heard of him.
KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO.
King Borria Bungalee Boo
Was a man-eating African swell;
His sigh was a hullaballoo,
His whisper a horrible yell—
A horrible, horrible yell!
Four subjects, and all of them male,
To Borria doubled the knee,
They were once on a far larger scale,
But he’d eaten the balance, you see
(“Scale” and “balance” is punning, you see).
There was haughty Pish-Tush-Pooh-Bah,
There was lumbering Doodle-Dum-Dey,
Despairing Alack-A-Dey-Ah,
And good little Tootle-Tum-Teh—
Exemplary Tootle-Tum-Teh.