Must not be too luxurious;

No stately halls with oaken floor -
It should be decent and no more.

" No billiard-rooms - no stately trees -
No croquet-grounds or pineries."

"Ah!" sighed the agent, "very true:
This property won't do for you."

"All these about the house you'll find." -
"Well," said the parson, "never mind;

I'll manage to submit to these
Luxurious superfluities.

"A clergyman who does not shirk
The various calls of Christian work,

Will have no leisure to employ
These 'common forms' of worldly joy.

"To preach three times on Sabbath days -
To wean the lost from wicked ways -

The sick to soothe - the sane to wed -
The poor to feed with meat and bread;

"These are the various wholesome ways
In which I'll spend my nights and days:

My zeal will have no time to cool
At croquet, archery, or pool."

The agent said, "From what I hear,
This living will not suit, I fear -

There are no poor, no sick at all;
For services there is no call."

The reverend gent looked grave, "Dear me!
Then there is NO 'society'? -

I mean, of course, no sinners there
Whose souls will be my special care?"

The cunning agent shook his head,
"No, none - except" - (the agent said) -

"The DUKE OF A., the EARL OF B.,
The MARQUIS C., and VISCOUNT D.

"But you will not be quite alone,
For though they've chaplains of their own,

Of course this noble well-bred clan
Receive the parishclergyman."

"Oh, silence, sir!" said SIMON M.,
"Dukes - Earls! What should I care for them?

These worldly ranks I scorn and flout!"
"Of course," the agent said, "no doubt!"

"Yet I might show these men of birth
The hollowness of rank on earth."

The agent answered, "Very true -
But I should not, if I were you."

"Who sells this rich advowson, pray?"
The agent winked - it was his way -

"His name is HART; 'twixt me and you,
He is, I'm grieved to say, a Jew!"

"A Jew?" said SIMON, "happy find!
I purchase this advowson, mind.

My life shall be devoted to
Converting that unhappy Jew!"

Ballad: Damon v. Pythias
Two better friends you wouldn't pass

Throughout a summer's day,
Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS, -

Two merchant princes they.
At school together they contrived

All sorts of boyish larks;
And, later on, together thrived

As merry merchants' clerks.
And then, when many years had flown,

They rose together till
They bought a business of their own -

And they conduct it still.
They loved each other all their lives,

Dissent they never knew,
And, stranger still, their very wives

Were rather friendly too.
Perhaps you think, to serve my ends,

These statements I refute,
When I admit that these dear friends

Were parties to a suit?
But 'twas a friendly action, for

Good PYTHIAS, as you see,
Fought merely as executor,

And DAMON as trustee.
They laughed to think, as through the throng

Of suitors sad they passed,
That they, who'd lived and loved so long,

Should go to law at last.
The junior briefs they kindly let

Two sucking counsel hold;
These learned persons never yet

Had fingered suitors' gold.
But though the happy suitors two

Were friendly as could be,
Not so the juniorcounsel who

Were earning maiden fee.
They too, till then, were friends. At school

They'd done each other's sums,
And under Oxford's gentle rule

Had been the closest chums.
But now they met with scowl and grin

In every public place,
And often snapped their fingers in

Each other's learned face.
It almost ended in a fight

When they on path or stair
Met face to face. They made it quite

A personal affair.
And when at length the case was called

(It came on rather late),
Spectators really were appalled

To see their deadly hate.
One junior rose - with eyeballs tense,

And swollen frontal veins:
To all his powers of eloquence

He gave the fullest reins.
His argument was novel - for

A verdict he relied
On blackening the junior

Upon the other side.
"Oh," said the Judge, in robe and fur,

"The matter in dispute
To arbitration pray refer -

This is a friendly suit."
And PYTHIAS, in merry mood,

Digged DAMON in the side;
And DAMON, tickled with the feud,

With other digs replied.
But oh! those deadlycounsel twain,

Who were such friends before,
Were never reconciled again -

They quarrelled more and more.
At length it happened that they met

On Alpine heights one day,
And thus they paid each one his debt,

Their fury had its way -
They seized each other in a trice,

With scorn and hatred filled,
And, falling from a precipice,

They, both of them, were killed.
Ballad: My Dream

The other night, from cares exempt,
I slept - and what d'you think I dreamt?

I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom -

Where vice is virtue - virtue, vice:
Where nice is nasty - nasty, nice:

Where right is wrong and wrong is right -
Where white is black and black is white.

Where babies, much to their surprise,
Are born astonishingly wise;

With every Science on their lips,
And Art at all their finger-tips.

For, as their nurses dandle them
They crow binomial theorem,

With views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.

But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in his head,

He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself a man.

For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured sphere;

The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in their eyes.

A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every day;

And cut, to carry out this view,
His wisdom teeth and wisdom too.

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 practisevirtue 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.

• submit [səb´mit] vt.使服从；使忍受 (初中英语单词)
• preach [pri:tʃ] v.宣扬；鼓吹 n.训诫 (初中英语单词)
• wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
• cunning [´kʌniŋ] a.&n.狡猾(诡诈)的 (初中英语单词)
• unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
• junior [´dʒu:niə] a.年少的 n.年少者 (初中英语单词)
• counsel [´kaunsəl] n.商议；劝告；律师 (初中英语单词)
• maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
• deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
• argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
• hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
• virtue [´və:tʃu:] n.美德；贞操；长处 (初中英语单词)
• absurd [əb´sə:d] a.荒谬的，可笑的 (初中英语单词)
• learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
• wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
• midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
• practise [´præktis] v.实践(行，施)；提倡 (初中英语单词)
• tradition [trə´diʃən] n.传统；惯例；传说 (初中英语单词)
• stately [´steitli] a.庄严的，雄伟的 (高中英语单词)
• decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
• parson [´pɑ:sən] n.教区牧师 (高中英语单词)
• clergyman [´klə:dʒimən] n.牧师；教士 (高中英语单词)
• leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
• soothe [su:ð] vt.安慰；镇定；减轻 (高中英语单词)
• wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
• reverend [´revərənd] a.可尊敬的 (高中英语单词)
• marquis [´mɑ:kwis] n.侯爵 (高中英语单词)
• parish [´pæriʃ] n.教区(的全体居民) (高中英语单词)
• learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
• nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
• awkward [´ɔ:kwəd] a.笨拙的；为难的 (高中英语单词)
• worldly [´wə:ldli] a.现世的；世俗的 (英语四级单词)
• sabbath [´sæbəθ] n.安息日 (英语四级单词)
• devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
• boyish [´bɔiiʃ] a.少年的；幼稚的 (英语四级单词)
• swollen [´swəulən] swell的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
• verdict [´və:dikt] n.裁决，判决；判定 (英语四级单词)
• alpine [´ælpain] a.高山的 (英语四级单词)
• favoured [´feivəd] a.有利的，喜爱的 (英语四级单词)
• arbitration [,ɑ:bi´treiʃən] n.仲裁；公断 (英语六级单词)