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The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith

Chapter 39: SONG FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.”
By Oliver Goldsmith
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British LiteraturePoetry

About This Book

This collection assembles lyrical, narrative, and didactic poems that mix pastoral description, social observation, and satirical wit. Works move between reflective meditations on rural life and change, concise moral essays in verse, and light comic sketches, employing classical allusion, clear narrative, and a conversational voice. Themes include the displacement of village communities, the absurdities of fashion and ambition, and sympathy for ordinary experience, balanced by formal variety and humor. The edition is accompanied by an editorial preface and biographical notes that contextualize the poems and clarify language and references.

SONG
FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.”

Scene.—A Room in the Alehouse, “The Three Pigeons.”

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
 With grammar, and nonsense, and learning—
 Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
 Gives genus a better discerning.
 Let them brag of their heathenish gods—
 Their Lethes, and Styxes, and Stygians;
 Their Quis, and their Quæs, and their Quods:
 They ’re all but a parcel of Pigeons.
 To-roddle, to-roddle, to-rol.
When methodist preachers come down,
 A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
 I’ll wager the rascals a crown,
 They always preach best with a skinful.
 But when you come down with your pence,
 For a slice of their scurvy religion,
 I’ll leave it to all men of sense—
 But you, my good friend, are the Pigeon.
 To-roddle, &c.

Then, come, put the jorum about,
 And let us be merry and clever;
 Our hearts and our liquors are stout—
 Here’s the “Three Jolly Pigeons” for ever!
 Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
 Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
 But of all the gay birds in the air—
 Here’s a health to the “Three Jolly Pigeons.”
 To-roddle, &c.