When I was three, one said to me,

While we were in the churchyard,

"Your Father is no good, is he?"

To tease me he did try hard.

And blushing red, with upturned head

And dangling curls and dimple,

"He peach te gop’l," I said,

An answer, to me simple.

"What does he say ?" was asked again,

"What does he preach about, then ?"

My answer was, "He says Amen,"

For this is all I heard when,

The singing done, I slept and slept

Until the benediction;

And, wakened by the closing hymn,

The rest, to me, was fiction.