Oliver Goldsmith (Оливер Голдсмит)
Song, from the Comedy of “She Stoops to Conquer”
SCENE.--A Room in the Alehouse, “The Three Pigeons.”
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning--
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives _genus_ a better discerning.
Let them brag of their heathenish gods--
Their Lethes, and Styxes, and Stygians;
Their Quis, and their Quæs, and their Quods:
They ’re all but a parcel of Pigeons.
To-roddle, to-roddle, to-rol.
When methodist preachers come down,
A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
I’ll wager the rascals a crown,
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I’ll leave it to all men of sense--
But you, my good friend, are the Pigeon.
To-roddle, &c.
Then, come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout--
Here’s the “Three Jolly Pigeons” for ever!
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
But of all the gay birds in the air--
Here’s a health to the “Three Jolly Pigeons.”
To-roddle, &c.
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