Classic Poem

They're complaining from the pulpit, with an energy undue,
That the craze for Sunday cycling now is emptying the pew;
But we think these hasty parsons are mistaken when they throw
On the wheel so much in fashion all the burden of their woe.

As it seems to us, the cycle, on which many perch,
Does not lure away each Sunday those who ride it from the church,
It is from the club it takes them, from the pot-house, from the street
As it bears them off rejoicing to the country fresh and sweet.

White-faced office-boys it carries to the woods, where thrushes sing
To the fields, where whirring coveys from the wavering wheat-stalks spring;
Care-worn city clerks it hurries off to nature's fairest scenes —
Flower-decked meads and trellised hopgrounds; babbling brooks and village greens.

Round-backed artisans it bears, too, from the small and stuffy room
To the lanes where trailing roses all the summer air perfumes;
And it makes them grow forgetful of the stifling, man-made town
As they climb the breezy roadway o'er the swelling, God-made down.

Can a change like this be vicious? Can the exercise do harm,
That thus adds to lives so weary, once a week a healthful charm?
No, it seems by far more likely that the cyclists thus may learn
From the fairest sights of nature to that nature's God to turn.

Moved to thought and to reflection by the wonders that they see,
They may long in grateful homage once again to bend the knee;
And the parsons may discover that their pews are filled anew,
Not because their flocks don't cycle, but, forsooth, because they do!