The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

224
Ask you to dine with me and Mistress Jay,
Whenever we have something on the spit,
Or in the pot a nice and dainty bit;
"Send you a goose, a pair of chicken,
Whose bones you are so fond of picking;
And often too a cag of brandy!
YOU that were welcome to a treat,
To smoke and chat, and drink and eat;
Making my house so very handy!
"YOU, parson, serve one such a scurvy trick!
Zounds! you must have the bowels of Old Nick.
What! bring the flood of Noah from the skies,
With MY fine field of hay before your eyes!
A numskull, that I wer'n't of this aware.--
Curse me but I had stopped your pretty prayer!"
"Dear Mister Jay!" quoth Lamb, "alas! alas!
I never thought upon your field of grass."
"Lord! parson, you're a fool, one might suppose--
Was not the field just underneath your NOSE?
This is a very pretty losing job!"--
"Sir," quoth the curate, "know that Harry Cobb
Your brother warden joined, to have the prayer,"--
"Cobb! Cobb! why this for Cobb was only SPORT:
What doth Cobb own that any rain can HURT?"
Roared furious Jay as broad as he could stare.
"The fellow owns, as far as I can LARN,
A few old houses only, and a barn;
As that's the case, zounds! what are showers to HIM?
Not Noah's flood could make HIS trumpery SWIM.
"Besides--why could you not for drizzle pray?
Why force it down in BUCKETS on the hay?
Would _I_ have played with YOUR hay such a freak?
No! I'd have stopped the weather for a week."
"Dear Mister Jay, I do protest,
I acted solely for the best;