Exeter

The doctor’s intellectual wife
Sat under the ilex tree
The Cathedral bells pealed over the wall
But never a bell heard she
And the sun played shadowgraphs on her book
Which was writ by A. Huxléy

Once those bells, those Exeter bells
Called her to praise and pray
By pink, acacia-shaded walls
Several times a day
To Wulfric’s altar and riddel posts
While the choir sang Stanford in A

The doctor jumps in his Morris car
The surgery door goes bang
Clash and whirr down Colleton Crescent
Other cars all go hang
My little bus is enough for us —
Till a tram-car bell went clang

They brought him in by the big front door
And a smiling corpse was he
On the dining-room table they laid him out
Where the Bystanders used to be
The Tatler, The Sketch, and The Bystander
For the canons' wives to see

Now those bells, those Exeter bells
Call her to praise and pray
By pink, acacia-shaded walls
Several times a day
To Wulfric's altar and riddel posts
And the choir sings Stanford in A