Classic Poem

Dinner was once a solemn meal;
Our fathers ate, straight off the reel,
Two soups, two fishes, entrees, roast,
A bird, sweets, savoury on toast,
Till from dessert at last they rose,
Well surfeited and comatose.

At such a feast we gaze askance,
To-day we only dine to dance.
The saxophone's melodious bleat,
The drummer's contrapuntal beat
Are mandates none may now ignore;
They bid us rise and take the floor!
But ere we spring from table, so,
To tread, on light fantastic toe,
Some measure frankly anthropoid,
We must make sure our mouths are void!

Young Henry Jones, a friend of mine,
Once took a girl to dance and dine;
And when she heard the saxophones
She turned at once to Henry Jones
And, laughing, dragged him to his feet.
His mouth was filled with saumon-truite
And also pommes de terre au beurre
(Or fish and chips, if you prefer),
And as they circled, cheek to cheek,
His mouth, alas! too full to speak,
He could not with becoming grace
Keep chewing in his partner's face,
So tried to swallow, at one gulp,
The scarcely masticated pulp!

Ah me! While he was acting thus,
Firmly in his aesophagus
A fish-bone (as his friends alleged)
Became inextricably wedged!
He choked! He ceased to breathe at all!
His partner then began to call
For doctors, and, I understand,
No less than four were close at hand,
If we include upon our list
A well-known osteologist.
(For in these dancing-clubs, you know,
The monde is very comme il faut ;
An ex-Lord Chancellor was there,
Some ladies with peroxide hair,
A few jeunes derniers of the stage,
Two peeresses of riper age,
And others, not perhaps so bien
But having what the French call chien ,
And wearing that decoll'te dress
Which makes one hope — but I digress!)

While four physicians scraped and bowed,
Each begging he might be allowed
To let his colleague take the case,
Poor Jones grew blacker in the face,
And seemed the symptoms to evince
Of some expiring Indian prince!

For hours the doctors argued hard
(The Bone-setter, of course, was barred)
Before they could at last agree
How best to split the patient's fee.
By then poor Henry Jones had tired
Of the discussion, and expired!

The moral, at a single glance,
Is this: If you must dine and dance,
Make sure the fish upon your plate
Is totally invertebrate;
If you decide to dance and dine,
See that your salmon has no spine!