Let schoolmasters puzzle their brains With grammar and nonsense and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning. Let them brag of their heathenish gods, Their Lethes, their Styxes and Stygians; Their quis and their quaes and their quods, They're all but a parcel of pigeons. Toroddle, toroddle, toroll. When methodist preachers come down, A-preaching that drinking is sinful, I 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. Toroddle, toroddle, toroll. 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 birds in the air, Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. Toroddle, toroddle, toroll. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: THE BEGINNER by RUDYARD KIPLING THE END OF IT by FRANCIS THOMPSON THE MORAL FABLES: THE FOX, THE WOLF, AND THE CADGER by AESOP THREE SONNETS WRITTEN IN MID-CHANNEL: 2 by ALFRED AUSTIN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE IVY; ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG FRIEND by BERNARD BARTON ON THE MARRIAGE OF A BEAUTEOUS YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN WITH AN ANCIENT MAN by FRANCIS BEAUMONT |