A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS

Said the Isis to the Cherwell in a tone of indignation,
"With a blush of conscious virtue your enormities I see:
And I wish that a reversal of the laws of gravitation
Would prevent your vicious current from contaminating me!
With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a novel
(Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt),
And the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios
Who pursue a mild flirtation in a misdirected punt!"

Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "You may talk about my vices--
But of all the sights of sorrow since the universe began,
Just commend me to the patience that can bear the degradations
Which inflicted are by Rowing on the dignity of man:
The unspeakable reproaches which are lavished by your coaches--
On my sense of what is proper they continually jar"--
("It is simply _Mos Majorum_--'twas their fathers' way before 'em--
'Tis a kind of ancient Cussed 'em"--said the Isis to the Cher.)

"Are we men and are we Britons? shall we ne'er obtain a quittance"--
Said the Cherwell to the Isis--"from the tyrants of the oar?
O it's Youth in a Canader with the willow boughs to shade her
And a chaperone discreetly in attendance (on the shore),
O it's cultivated leisure that is life's supremest treasure,
Far from athletes merely brutal, and from Philistines afar:
I've a natural aversion to gratuitous exertion,