Only think, thought I, as I dozed away,
Of a party of Churchmen dancing the hay!
Clerks, curates and rectors capering all
With a neat-legged Bishop to open the ball!
Scarce had my eyelids time to close,
When the scene I had fancied before me rose--
An Episcopal Hop on a scale so grand
As my dazzled eyes could hardly stand.
For Britain and Erin clubbed their Sees
To make it a Dance of Dignities,
And I saw--oh brightest of Church events!
A quadrille of the two Establishments,
Bishop to Bishop _vis-a-vis_,
Footing away prodigiously.
There was Bristol capering up to Derry,
And Cork with London making merry;
While huge Llandaff, with a See, so so,
Was to dear old Dublin pointing his toe.
There was Chester, hatched by woman's smile,
Performing a _chaine des Dames_ in style;
While he who, whene'er the Lords' House dozes,
Can waken them up by citing Moses,[3]
The portly Tuam, was all in a hurry
To set, _en avant_, to Canterbury.
Meantime, while pamphlets stuft his pockets,
(All out of date like spent skyrockets,)
Our Exeter stood forth to caper,
As high on the floor as he doth on paper--
like a dapper Dancing Dervise,
Who pirouettes his whole church-service--
Performing, midst those reverend souls,
Such _entrechats_, such _cabrioles_,
Such _balonnes_, such--rigmaroles,
Now high, now low, now this, that,
That none could guess what the devil he'd be at;
Tho', watching his various steps, some thought
That a step in the Church was all he sought.
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