’T was a maiden lady (the newspapers
say)
Pious and prim and a bit gone-gray.
She slept like an angel, holy
and white,
Till ten o’ the clock
in the shank o’ the night
(When men and other wild animals prey)
And then she cried in the viewless gloom:
“There’s a man in the room,
a man in the room!”
And this maiden lady (they make it appear)
Leapt out of the window, five fathom sheer!
Alas, that lying is such a sin
When newspaper men need bread and gin
And none can be had for less
than a lie!
For the maiden lady a bit gone-gray
Saw the man in the room from across the
way,
And leapt, not out of the window but in—
Ten fathom sheer, as
I hope to die!
AN EXPLANATION.
“I never yet exactly could determine
Just how it is that the judicial ermine
Is kept so safely from predacious vermin.”
“It is not so, my friend: though
in a garret
’Tis kept in camphor, and you often
air it,
The vermin will get into it and wear it.”
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