And I'm prone to mild flirtation," said the unrepentant Cher.

But in accents of the sternest, "Life is Real: Life is Earnest,"
(Said the grim rebuking Isis to his tributary stream);
"Don't you know the Joy of Living is in honourably Striving,
Don't you know the Chase of Pleasure is a vain delusive Dream?
When they toil and when they shiver in the tempests on the River,
When they're faint and spent and weary, and they have
to pull it through,
'Tis in Action stern and zealous that they truly find a _Telos_, [1]
Though a moment's relaxation be afforded them by you!"

Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "When the trees are clad in greenness,
When the Eights are fairly over, and it's drawing near Commem.,
It is Ver and it is Venus that shall judge the case between us,
And I think for all your maxims that you won't compete with them!
Then despite their boasted virtue shall your athletes all desert you
(Come to me for information if you don't know where they are):
For it's _ina scholaxomen_ [2] that's the proper end of Woman
And of Man--at least in summer," said the easy-going Cher.

[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Telos" was transliterated from the
Greek characters Tau, epsilon, lambda, omicron, and sigma.]

[2. Transcriber's note: The two words "ina scholaxomen" were
transliterated from Greek as follows: "ina"--iota (possibly accompanied
by the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha; "scholaxomen"--sigma,
chi, omicron, lambda, alpha (possibly with the soft-breathing
diacritical), xi, omega, mu, epsilon, nu.]