can't just call to mind--
But it's not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It's the best among the vocalists I'd honor with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics--
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec's.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass,
Have turn'd a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns--altho' I can't see how it follers--
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

Well, that's the row--and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the "Arms" her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing--as some longish heads foretell it,
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it,
Howsomever, for the present, there's no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a-growing, and defies the New Police;--
But if _I_ was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man,
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I'd have another candidate--and that's the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy,
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby--if folks was wise--instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers,
They'll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely--Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, by Thomas Hood

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