Mother Goose for Grown-ups

A rivulet gabbled beside her and babbled,
As rivulets always are thought to do,
And dragon-flies sported around and cavorted,
As poets say dragon-flies ought to do;
When, glancing aside for a moment, she spied
A horrible sight that brought fear to her,
A hideous spider was sitting beside her
And most unavoidably near to her!

Albeit unsightly, this creature politely
Said: "Madam, I earnestly vow to you,
I'm penitent that I did not bring my hat. I
Should otherwise certainly bow to you."
Though anxious to please, he was so ill at ease
That he lost all his sense of propriety,
And grew so inept that he clumsily stept
In her plate – which is barred in Society.

This curious error completed her terror;
She shuddered, and growing much paler, not
Only left tuffet, but dealt him a buffet
Which doubled him up in a sailor-knot.
It should be explained that at this he was pained:
He cried: "I have vexed you, no doubt of it!
Your fist's like a truncheon." "You're still in my luncheon,"
Was all that she answered. "Get out of it!"

And The moral is this: Be it madam or miss
To whom you have something to say,
You are only absurd when you get in the curd
But you're rude when you get in the whey.

THE FEARFUL FINALE OF THE IRASCIBLE MOUSE

Upon a stairway built of brick
A pleasant-featured clock
From time to time would murmur "Tick"
And vary it with "Tock":
Although no great intelligence
There lay in either word,
They were not meant to give offence
To anyone who heard.

Within the pantry of the house,
Among some piles of cheese,
There dwelt an irritable mouse,
Extremely hard to please:
His appetite was most immense.
Each day he ate a wedge
Of Stilton cheese. In consequence
His nerves were all on edge.

With ill-concealed impatience he,
Upon his morning walk,
Had heard the clock unceasingly,
Monotonously talk,
Until his rage burst every bound.
He gave a fretful shout:
"Well, sakes alive! It's time I found
What all this talk's about."

With all the admirable skill
That marks the rodent race
The mouse ran up the clock, until
He'd crept behind the face,
And then, with words that no one ought
To use, and scornful squeals,
He cried aloud: "Just what I thought!
Great oaf, you're full of wheels!"

The timepiece sternly said: "Have done!"
And through the silent house
It struck emphatically one.
(But that one was the mouse!)
To earth the prowling rodent fell,
In terror for his life,
And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,
There stood the farmer's wife.

She did not faint, she did not quail,
She did not cry out: "Scat!"
She simply took him by the tail
And gave him to the cat,
And, with a stern, triumphant look,
She watched him clawed and cleft,
And with some blotting paper took
Up all that there was left.

The moral: In a farmer's home
Run down his herds, his flocks,
Run down his crops, run down his loam,
But when it comes to clocks,
Pray leave them ticking every one
In peace upon their shelves:
When running down is to be done
The clocks run down themselves.

THE GASTRONOMIC GUILE OF SIMPLE SIMON