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.