And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment,
Of innocent merriment!

The advertising quack who wearies
With tales of countless cures,
His teeth, I've enacted,
Shall all be extracted
By terrified amateurs.
The music hall singer attends a series
Of masses and fugues and "ops"
By Bach, interwoven
With Sophr and Beethoven,
At classical Monday Pops.
The billiard sharp whom any one catches,
His doom's extremely hard—
He's made to dwell
In a dungeon cell
On a spot that's always barred.
And there he plays extravagant matches
In fitless finger-stalls,
On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue,
And elliptical billiard balls!

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime—
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment.
Of innocent merriment!