Kind Of An Ode To Duty

O Duty, Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie? Why displayest thou the countenance of the kind of conscientious organizing spinster that the minute you see her you are aginster? Why glitter thy spectables so ominously? Why are thou clad so abominously? Why art thou so different from Venus and why do thou and I have so few interests mutually in common between us? Why art thou fifty per cent. martyr and fifty-one per cent. Tartar? Why is it thy unfortunate wont to try to attract people by calling on them either to leave undone the deeds they like, or to do the deeds they don’t? Why are thou so like an April post mortem on something that died in the ortumn? Above all, why dost thou continue to hound me? Why art thou always albatrossly hanging around me? Thou so ubiquitous, and I so iniquitous. I seem to be the one person in the world thou art perpetually preaching at who or to who; Whatever looks like fun, there art thou standing between me and it, and calling yoo-hoo. O Duty, Duty! How noble a man should I be hadst thou the visage of a sweetie or a cutie! Wert thou but houri instead of hag, then would my halo indeed be in the bag! But as it is thou art so much forbiddinger than a Wodehouse hero’s forbiddingest aunt that in the words of the poet, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, this erstwhile youth replies I just can’t.