Oliver Goldsmith

Song, from the Comedy of “She Stoops to Conquer”

SCENE.--A Room in the Alehouse, “The Three Pigeons.”

  Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
    With grammar, and nonsense, and learning--
  Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
    Gives _genus_ a better discerning.
  Let them brag of their heathenish gods--
    Their Lethes, and Styxes, and Stygians;
  Their Quis, and their Quæs, and their Quods:
    They ’re all but a parcel of Pigeons.
                      To-roddle, to-roddle, to-rol.

  When methodist preachers come down,
    A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
  I’ll 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.
                      To-roddle, &c.

  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 gay birds in the air--
    Here’s a health to the “Three Jolly Pigeons.”
                                  To-roddle, &c.