"The man in the moon

Came down too soon

To inquire the way to Norwich;

The man in the south,

He burnt his mouth

With eating cold plum porridge."

The moony men are always in a hurry

That puts sedater people in a flurry,

They get their theories through other media

Than facts of gazetteer or cyclopaedia;

And then, by some unknown, preposterous

gateway,

Rush forth to claim the realizing straight-

way.

Just think of lighting on a foreign planet,

Asking for Norwich before folks began it!

But then, those sleepy souls at the equator

Lose just as much, you see, by starting

later;

Never strike in while anything is hot,—

Wait till the porridge is all out o' the

pot;—

And through their indolence and easy fool-

ing

Burn their mouths, figuratively, in the cool-

ing!

Too soon, too slow, there's nothing comes

out even;

The very sun that travels through the

heaven

Heels o'er the line, now this way and now

that,

And only twice a year can hit it pat.

Even your two eyes make a parallax,

And might mislead you on two different

tracks;

Between them both, the moral, I suppose,

Is that each man should follow his own

nose!