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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539036" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Phantom Curate</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A bishop once - I will not name him see -<br>Annoyed his clergy in the mode conventional;<br>From pulpit shackles never set them free,<br>And found a sin where sin was unintentional.<br>All pleasures ended in abuse auricular -<br>The Bishop was so terribly particular.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though, on the whole, a wise and upright man,<br>He sought to make of human pleasures clearances;<br>And form his priests on that much-lauded plan<br>Which pays undue attention to appearances.<br>He couldn't do good deeds without a psalm in 'em,<br>Although, in truth, he bore away the palm in 'em.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Enraged to find a deacon at a dance,<br>Or catch a curate at some mild frivolity,<br>He sought by open censure to enhance<br>Their dread of joining harmless social jollity.<br>Yet he enjoyed (a fact of notoriety)<br>The ordinary pleasures of society.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One evening, sitting at a pantomime<br>(Forbidden treat to those who stood in fear of him),<br>Roaring at jokes, SANS metre, sense, or rhyme,<br>He turned, and saw immediately in rear of him,<br>His peace of mind upsetting, and annoying it,<br>A curate, also heartily enjoying it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Again, 't was Christmas Eve, and to enhance<br>His children's pleasure in their harmless rollicking,<br>He, like a good old fellow, stood to dance;<br>When something checked the current of his frolicking:<br>That curate, with a maid he treated lover-ly,<br>Stood up and figured with him in the &quot;Coverley!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once, yielding to an universal choice<br>(The company's demand was an emphatic one,<br>For the old Bishop had a glorious voice),<br>In a quartet he joined - an operatic one.<br>Harmless enough, though ne'er a word of grace in it,<br>When, lo! that curate came and took the bass in it!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One day, when passing through a quiet street,<br>He stopped awhile and joined a Punch's gathering;<br>And chuckled more than solemn folk think meet,<br>To see that gentleman his Judy lathering;<br>And heard, as Punch was being treated penally,<br>That phantom curate laughing all hyaenally.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now at a picnic, 'mid fair golden curls,<br>Bright eyes, straw hats, BOTTINES that fit amazingly,<br>A croquet-bout is planned by all the girls;<br>And he, consenting, speaks of croquet praisingly;<br>But suddenly declines to play at all in it -<br>The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed<br>From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,<br>He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,<br>In manner anything but hierarchical -<br>He sees - and fixes an unearthly stare on it -<br>That curate's face, with half a yard of hair on it!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length he gave a charge, and spake this word:<br>&quot;Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may;<br>To check their harmless pleasuring's absurd;<br>What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may.&quot;<br>He spake, and lo! at this concluding word of him,<br>The curate vanished - no one since has heard of him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Schwenck+Gilbert">William Schwenck Gilbert</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539036" data-title="The Phantom Curate de William Schwenck Gilbert" data-description="A bishop once - I will not name him see -
Annoyed his clergy in the mode conventional;
From pulpit shackles never set them free,
And found a sin where sin was unintentional.
All pleasures ended in abuse auricular -
The Bishop was so terribly parti..."></div>
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