The Ingoldsby Legends or, Mirth and Marvels. By Thomas Ingoldsby [i.e. R. H. Barham] |
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MORAL. |
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 | The Ingoldsby Legends |  |
MORAL.
I think we may coax out a moral or two
From the facts which have lately come under our view.
First—Don't meddle with Saints;—for you'll find if you do
They're what Scotch people call, “kittle cattle to shoe!”
And when once they have managed to take you in tow,
It's a deuced hard matter to make them let go!
From the facts which have lately come under our view.
First—Don't meddle with Saints;—for you'll find if you do
They're what Scotch people call, “kittle cattle to shoe!”
And when once they have managed to take you in tow,
It's a deuced hard matter to make them let go!
Now to you, wicked Pagans!—who wander about,
Up and down Regent Street every night, “on the scout,”—
Recollect the Police keep a sharpish look-out,
And if once you're suspected, your skirts they will stick to
Till they catch you at last in flagrante delicto!—
Don't the inference draw That because he of Blois
Suffer'd one to bilk “Old father Antic the Law,”
That our May'rs and our Aldermen—and we've a City full—
Show themselves, at our Guildhall, quite so pitiful!
Up and down Regent Street every night, “on the scout,”—
Recollect the Police keep a sharpish look-out,
And if once you're suspected, your skirts they will stick to
Till they catch you at last in flagrante delicto!—
Don't the inference draw That because he of Blois
Suffer'd one to bilk “Old father Antic the Law,”
That our May'rs and our Aldermen—and we've a City full—
Show themselves, at our Guildhall, quite so pitiful!
Lastly, as to the Pagan who play'd such a trick,
First assuming the tonsure, then cutting his stick,
There is but one thing which occurs to me—that
Is,—Don't give too much credit to people who “rat!”
—Never forget Early habit's a net
Which entangles us all, more or less, in its mesh;
And “What's bred in the bone won't come out of the flesh!”
We must all be aware Nature's prone to rebel, as
Old Juvenal tells us, Naturam expellas
Tamen usque recurret! There's no making Her rat!
So that all that I have on this head to advance
Is,—whatever they think of these matters in France,
There's a proverb, the truth of which each one allows here,
“You never can make a silk purse of a sow's ear!”
First assuming the tonsure, then cutting his stick,
There is but one thing which occurs to me—that
Is,—Don't give too much credit to people who “rat!”
—Never forget Early habit's a net
Which entangles us all, more or less, in its mesh;
And “What's bred in the bone won't come out of the flesh!”
We must all be aware Nature's prone to rebel, as
Old Juvenal tells us, Naturam expellas
Tamen usque recurret! There's no making Her rat!
So that all that I have on this head to advance
Is,—whatever they think of these matters in France,
There's a proverb, the truth of which each one allows here,
“You never can make a silk purse of a sow's ear!”
| The Ingoldsby Legends | |