Historians burn their midnight oils,
Intent on giant-killers’ toils;
And sages close their aged eyes
To other sages’ lullabies.
Our magistrates, in duty bound,
Commit all robbers who are found;
But there the Beaks (so people said)
Commit all robberies instead.
Our Judges, pure and wise in tone,
Know crime from theory alone,
And glean the motives of a thief
From books and popular belief.
But there, a Judge who wants to prime
His mind with true ideas of crime,
Derives them from the common sense
Of practical experience.
Policemen march all folks away
Who practise virtue every day—
Of course, I mean to say, you know,
What we call virtue here below.
For only scoundrels dare to do
What we consider just and true,
And only good men do, in fact,
What we should think a dirty act.
But strangest of these social twirls,
The girls are boys—the boys are girls!
The men are women, too—but then,
Per contra, women all are men.
To one who to tradition clings
This seems an awkward state of things,
But if to think it out you try,
It doesn’t really signify.
With them, as surely as can be,
A sailor should be sick at sea,
And not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.
A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round).