Classic Poem

The perfect breakfast, all must own,
Is that which man enjoys alone;
Peace, perfect peace, is found, they say,
Only with loved ones far away,
And there is naught but solitude
That suits the matutinal mood.

But there, alas! are tactless folk
Who choose that hour to jest and joke,
Whose conversation, brisk and bright,
Just bearable perhaps at night,
Fills with intolerable gloom
The self-respecting breakfast-room.
Thus, as I verily suspect,
Are many happy households wrecked;
So when you break your morning fast
Let no one share that first repast!

Dean Cope, the eminent divine,
Was breakfasting at half-past nine,
Perusing (as he munched his toast)
" The Anglican or Churchman's Post, "
When in there blew, to his distress,
The Bishop of the Diocese
(Most typical in size and girth
Of the Church Militant on Earth)
Who shouted " Cheerio, old chap! "
And gave the Dean a playful slap.

Alas! What ill-timed bonhomie !
The Dean inhaled his kedgeree,
And turning, with his face all black,
He slapped the breezy Bishop back!

Both lost their tempers there and then,
And in a trice these holy men
Began (with the most unholy zeal)
To throw the remnants of the meal
At one another! Buttered eggs

Bespattered aprons, gaitered legs
Were splashed with bacon; bits of sole
Fell thick on cassock, alb, and stole!
The dining-room became a sea
Of struggling Christianity,
And when at last the luckless Dean
Slipped on a pat of margarine,
The Bishop took a careful shot
And brained him with the mustard-pot!

A sight to make the angels weep!
How scandalized the local sheep
Who read descriptions of the scene
In ev'ry Parish Magazine!

The Diocese was deeply shocked;
The Dean, degraded and unfrocked,
Found refuge in a City slum,
Lay-reader to the Deaf and Dumb!

The Bishop lost his see, and sank
To rural Prebendary's rank!
No longer in his breezy way
He reads the Collect for the Day,
Or chants what proper hymns there be
For those of Riper Years at Sea!

At Matins and at Evensong
His cry goes up: " How long! How long! "
His groans are heard through aisle and apse
Bewailing his untimely lapse,
As he repents him of the crime
Of being bright at breakfast time!