Let us all be Unhappy on Sunday

Let us all be Unhappy on Sunday: A Lyric for Saturday Night


 * We zealots, made up of stiff clay,
 * The sour-looking children of sorrow,
 * While not over-jolly today,
 * Resolve to be wretched tomorrow.
 * We can't for a certainty tell
 * What mirth may molest us on Monday;
 * But, at least, to begin the week well,
 * Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.


 * That day, the calm season of rest,
 * Shall come to us freezing and frigid;
 * A gloom all our thoughts shall invest,
 * Such as Calvin would call over-rigid,
 * With sermons from morning to night,
 * We'll strive to be decent and dreary:
 * To preachers a praise and delight,
 * Who ne'er think that sermons can weary.


 * All tradesmen cry up their own wares;
 * In this they agree well together:
 * The Mason by stone and lime swears;
 * The Tanner is always for leather;
 * The Smith still for iron would go;
 * The Schoolmaster stands up for teaching;
 * And the Parson would have you to know,
 * There's nothing on earth like his preaching.


 * The face of kind Nature is fair;
 * But our system obscures its effulgence:
 * How sweet is a breath of fresh air!
 * But our rules don't allow the indulgence.
 * These gardens, their walks and green bowers,
 * Might be free to the poor man for one day;
 * But no, the glad plants and gay flowers
 * Mustn't bloom or smell sweetly on Sunday.


 * What though a good precept we strain
 * Till hateful and hurtful we make it!
 * What though, in thus pulling the rein,
 * We may draw it as tight as to break it!
 * Abroad we forbid folks to roam,
 * For fear they get social or frisky;
 * But of course they can sit still at home,
 * And get dismally drunk upon whisky.


 * Then, though we can't certainly tell
 * How mirth may molest us on Monday;
 * At least, to begin the week well,
 * Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.