Now at a pic-nic, 'mid fair golden curls,
Bright eyes, straw hats, bottines that fit amazingly;
A croquêt-bout is planned by all the girls;
And he, consenting, speaks of croquêt praisingly.
But suddenly declines to play at all in it—
The curate-fiend has come to take a ball in it!
Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed
From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,
He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,
In manner anything but hierarchical—
He sees—and fixes an unearthly stare on it—
That curate's face, with half a yard of hair on it!
At length he gave a charge, and spake this word,
"Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may;
To check their harmless pleasuring's absurd;
What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may."
He spake, and lo! at this concluding word of him,
The curate vanished—no one since has heard of him.
