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I'm an elderly man, of conservative turn, Content to remember, not eager to learn; I like institutions as firm as a rock; What ails her to talk about twenty o'clock?

We prate about progress; it flatters our pride; Yet we are but the playthings of cycle and tide; We only return, if the truth be admitted, To walk in the ways that our grandfathers quitted.

When clocks were invented, they made them to chime From one up to twenty-four hours at a time; And cuckoos, who cuckoo two dozen at a go Still linger, I hear, in the Canton of Vaud.

A truce to lamenting! It's vain to repine; The world will not alter its notions for mine; So listen a little, and let me take stock Of things atavistic like twenty o'clock.

I hear Sarah Battle inviting the throng Short whist to abandon in favour of long; While Handel in smiles from a corner in heaven Sees Sullivan's score on a stave of eleven.

Ere long shall the glory of Oscar be past With pseudo-æsthetics too sickly to last; And artists like those of a healthier age Paint lilies and roses for sun-flower and sage.

Nor less will our sportsmen, if worthy the name, Vote battues and beaters unmanly and tame; And a flask and slow matches for cartridge and cock Will find us a pheasant for twenty o'clock.

The dinner I'm asked to, I'm able to state, Will be plainer and better than dinners of late; And ale and metheglin, not Chablis or Hock, Will wash down our sirloin at twenty o'clock.