The Wandering Eels[8]

The times are out of joint, my dears, The world no longer wags As once it did when we were young; Domestic virtue lags. The lads are always in the street, The lasses far from home, And though you’d scarce believe it, dears, E’en eels begin to roam!

Time was when every eel, my dears, Went early to his bed, And such a thing as midnight swim Ne’er entered in his head. But now by day he simply squirms Where shallow waters be, While when the curfew tolls, my dears, He wriggles out to sea!

In Denmark they’re so bad, my dears, These vicious, vagrant eels, That government has laid a plot Which deepest art conceals, To make them think that day is night, Or rather, night is day, For only in the dark, my dears, Will they set on their way.

From Denmark to its isles, my dears, And from its headlands steep, They’ve laid a cable strung with lamps, Illumining the deep. The sportive eels at night come out To run away to sea, And finding that it’s light, my dears, Slip back again for tea!

A moral there is hid, my dears, Within this watery tale, And just as brightly does it shine As any fish’s scale. Whene’er you leave your house at night, With frolics in your head, And find the streets alight, my dears, Just toddle home to bed!