A noble and a generous mind

Was Jack's;

Folks knew he would not talk behind

Their backs:

But when some maiden fresh and young,

At Jack a bit of banter flung,

She soon discovered that his tongue

Was sharp as any ax.

A flirt of most engaging wiles

Was Jill;

On Jack she lavished all her smiles,

Until

Her slave (and he was not the first)

Of lovesick swains became the worst,

His glance a strong box might have burst,

His sighs were fit to kill.

One April morning, clear and fair,

When both

Of staying home and idling there

In sloth

Were weary, Jack remarked to Jill:

"Oh, what's the sense in sitting still?

Let's mount the slope of yonder hill."

And she was nothing loth.

But as she answered: "What's the use?"

The gruff

Young swain replied: "Oh, there's excuse

Enough.

Your doting parents water lack;

We'll fill a pail and bring it back."

(The reader will perceive that Jack

Was putting up a bluff.)

Thus hand in hand the tempting hill

They scaled,

And Jack proposed a kiss to Jill,

And failed!

One backward start, one step too bold,

And down the hill the couple rolled,

Resembling, if the truth were told,

A luggage train derailed.

With eyes ablaze with anger, she

Exclaimed:

"Well, who'd have thought! You'd ought to be

Ashamed!

You quite forget yourself, it's plain,

So I'll forget you, too. Insane

Young man, I'll say oafweederzane."

(Her German might be blamed.)

But Jack, whose linguist's pride was pricked,

To shine,

Asked: "Meine Königin will nicht

Be mine?"

And when she answered: "Nein" in spleen,

He cried: "Then in the soup tureen

You'll stay. You're not the only queen

Discarded for a nein!"

The moral's made for maidens young

And small:

If you would in a foreign tongue

Enthrall,

Lead off undaunted in a Swede

Or Spanish speech, and you'll succeed,

But they who in a German lead

No favor win at all.

Though she was only a shepherdess,

Tending the meekest of sheep,

Never was African leopardess

Crosser than Little Bow Peep:

Quite apathetic, impassible

People described her as: "That

Wayward, contentious, irascible,

Testy, cantankerous brat!"

Yet, as she dozed in a grotto-like

Sort of a kind of a nook,

She was so charmingly Watteau-like,

What with her sheep and her crook;

"She is a dryad or nymph," any

Casual passer would think.

Poets pronounced her a symphony,

All in the palest of pink.

Thus it was not enigmatical,

That the young shepherd who first

Found her asleep, in ecstatical

Sighs of felicity burst:

Such was his sudden beatitude

That, as he gazed at her so,

Daphnis gave vent to this platitude:

"My! Ain't she elegant though!"

Roused from some dream of Arcadia,

Little Bow Peep with a start

Answered him: "I ain't afraid o' yer!

P'raps you imagine you're smart!"

Daphnis protested impulsively,

Blushing as red as a rose;

All was in vain. She convulsively

Punched the young man in the nose!

All of it's true, every word of it!

I was not present to peep,

But if you ask how I heard of it,

Please to remember the sheep.

There is no need of excuse. You will

See how such scandals occur:

If you recall Mother Goose, you will

Know what tail-bearers they were!

Moral: This pair irreclaimable

Might have made Seraphim weep,

But who can pick the most blamable?

Both saw a little beau peep!

She was one of those creatures

Whose features

Are hard beyond any reclaim;

And she loved in a hovel

To grovel,

And she hadn't a cent to her name.

She owned neither gallants

Nor talents;

She borrowed extensively, too,

From all of her dozens

Of