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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539328" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Rape of the Trap. A Ballad</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas in a land of learning,<br>The Muse's favourite city,<br>Such pranks of late<br>Were play'd by a rat,<br>As-tempt one to be witty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All in a college study,<br>Where books were in great plenty;<br>This rat would devour<br>More sense in an hour,<br>Than I could write-in twenty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Corporeal food, 'tis granted,<br>Serves vermin less refined,<br>Sir But this, a rat of taste,<br>All other rats surpass'd,<br>And he prey'd on the food of the mind, Sir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His breakfast, half the morning<br>He constantly attended;<br>And when the bell rung<br>For evening song,<br>His dinner scarce was ended!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He spared not even heroics,<br>On which we poets pride us,<br>And would make no more<br>Of King Arthurs, by the score,<br>Than-all the world beside does.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In books of geography<br>He made the maps to flutter;<br>A river or a sea<br>Was to him a dish of tea;<br>And a kingdom, bread and butter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But if some mawkish potion<br>Might chance to overdose him,<br>To check its rage,<br>He took a page<br>Of logic-to compose him-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Trap, in haste and anger,<br>Was brought, you need not doubt on't,<br>And, such was the gin,<br>Were a lion once got in,<br>He could not, I think, get out on't.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With cheese, not books, 'twas baited;<br>The fact-I'll not belie it-<br>Since none-I tell you that-<br>Whether scholar or rat,<br>Minds books when he has other diet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But more of Trap and bait, Sir,<br>Why should I sing, or either?<br>Since the rat, who knew the sleight,<br>Came in the dead of night,<br>And dragg'd them away together.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Both Trap and bait were vanish'd<br>Through a fracture in the flooring;<br>Which though so trim<br>It now may seem<br>Had then-a dozen or more in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then answer this, ye sages!<br>Nor deem I mean to wrong ye,<br>Had the rat, which thus did seize on<br>The Trap, less claim to reason,<br>Than many a skull among ye?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dan Prior's mice, I own it,<br>Were vermin of condition;<br>But this rat, who merely learn'd<br>What rats alone concern'd,<br>Was the greater politician.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That England's topsyturvy<br>Is clear from these mishaps, Sir;<br>Since Traps, we may determine,<br>Will no longer take our vermin,<br>But vermin take our Traps, Sir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let sophs, by rats infested,<br>Then trust in cats to catch them,<br>Lest they grow as learn'd as we<br>In our studies ; where, d' ye see,<br>No mortal sits to watch them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Good luck betide our captains,<br>Good luck betide our cats, Sir,<br>And grant that the one<br>May quell the Spanish Don,<br>And the other destroy our rats, Sir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Shenstone">William Shenstone</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=539328" data-title="The Rape of the Trap. A Ballad de William Shenstone" data-description="'Twas in a land of learning,
The Muse's favourite city,
Such pranks of late
Were play'd by a rat,
As-tempt one to be witty.

All in a college study,
Where books were in great plenty;
This rat would devour
More sense in an hour,
Than I could write-..."></div>
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