John
Henderson, an unbeliever,
Had
lately lost his Joie de Vivre
From
reading far too many books.
He
went about with gloomy looks;
Despair
inhabited his breast
And
made the man a perfect pest.
Not
so his sister, Mary Lunn,
She
had a whacking lot of fun!
Though
unbelieving as a beast
She
didn't worry in the least,
But
drank as hard as she was able
And
sang and danced upon the table;
And
when she met her brother Jack
She
used to smack him on the back
So
smartly as to make him jump,
And
cry 'What-ho! You've got the hump!'
A
phrase which, more than any other,
Was
gall and wormwood to her brother;
For,
having an agnostic mind,
He
was exceedingly refined.
The
Christians, a declining band,
Would
point with monitory hand
To
Henderson his desperation,
To
Mary Lunn her dissipation,
And
often mutter, 'Mark my words!
Something
will happen to those birds!'
Which
came to pass: for Mary Lunn
Died
suddenly, at ninety-one,
Of
Psittacosis, not before
Becoming
an appalling bore.
While
Henderson, I'm glad to state,
Though
naturally celibate,
Married
an intellectual wife
Who
made him lead the Higher life
And
wouldn't give him any wine;
Whereby
he fell in a decline,
And,
at the time of writing this,
Is
suffering from paralysis,
The
which, we hear with no surprise,
Will
shortly end in his demise.
The
moral is (it is indeed!)
You
mustn't monkey with the Creed.