Half a bar, half a bar,

Half a bar onward!

Into an awful ditch

Choir and precentor hitch,

Into a mess of pitch,

They led the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenors to left of them,

Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.

Oh, that precentor's look,

When the sopranos took

Their own time and hook

From the Old Hundred!

Screeched all the trebles here,

Boggled the tenors there,

Raising the parson's hair,

While his mind wandered;

Theirs not to reason why

This psalm was pitched too high:

Theirs but to gasp and cry

Out the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenros to left of them,

Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.

Stormed they with shout and yell,

Not wise they sang nor well,

Drowning the sexton's bell,

While all the Church wondered.

Dire the precentor's glare,

Flashed his pitchfork in the air

Sounding fresh keys to bear

Out the Old Hundred.

Swiftly he turned his back,

Reached he his hat from rack,

Then from the screaming pack,

Himself he sundered.

Tenors to right of him,

Tenors to left of him,

Discords behind him,

Bellowed and thundered.

Oh, the wild howls they wrought:

Right to the end they fought!

Some tune they sang, but not

Not the Old Hundred.