O Wordy, Wordy, bard of Rydal Mount, it's sick with laughing you'll be
making me. All things not at rest are cheerful. Dad, if he means the
flies, they're cheerful enough, but if it's my dear friend, Farquhar
Wilkinson, it's a mistake the old gentleman is making. See, this is more
like it, at the very beginning of 'The Excursion':--
Nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.
That's you, Wilks, you to a dot. What a grand thing poetic instinct is,
that looks away seventy years into the future and across the Atlantic
Ocean, to find a humble admirer in the wilds of Canada, and tell how he
looked among the flies. 'Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?' O,
holy Moses, that's the finest line I've sighted in a dog's age. Cheer
up, old man, and wipe that tear away, for I see the clouds have rolled
by, Jenny."
"Man, clod, profaner of the shrine of poesy, cease your ignorant
cackle," cried the irate dominie. Silently they bathed faces and hands
in the brook, donned their knapsacks, and took to the road once more.
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