Page 81 - Poetry-Whimsy

The Backbiter

There’s someone living in this town,
(Maybe you know her name,
And maybe should I write it down,
Your own might prove the same).
Who, when you say, “He’s good,” will cry,
“Indeed! You think that’s true,
But,” very confidentially,
“You wouldn’t—if you knew!”

One says, “What pretty girl goes by?”
“Oh, horrors! You don’t think
So!—Since we’re you and I,
I’ll say, her parents drink.
And she—well, I won’t tell it out,
Though I’ve no doubt ‘tis true,
You think she’s nice and pretty—but
You wouldn’t, if you knew!”

If one sings sweetly, “How she flats!”
If dressed in taste, “What style!”
Supremely “vulgar” all her hats,
Her dresses simply “vile.”
And when good Deacon Busby failed
(A noble man and true),
She said, when we his lot bewailed,
“You wouldn’t, if you knew!”

Let those admire and love who can
This malice-breathing dame,
Who seems to think a prosperous man
Must surely be to blame.
That beauty is a mark of sin;
That goodness must be crime;
She sees but thieves and rascals in
The heroes of our time.

Sometimes she doesn’t hesitate
To tell us what she knows,
And in seven cases out of eight

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