 | The harp and plow |  |
Just then thoughts of a different kind
Seemed suddenly to cross her mind,
And she went on in tone more civil;
‘It may be, though, that you're the devil;
What business, pray, have you with me?
We surely cannot disagree.
Have n't I left my proper sphere
To spread my scandals far and near?
Left my ‘old man,’ I swore to cherish,
To cold potatoes or to perish?
My poor neglected brats forsaken
Till you 've apprenticed them, and taken?
Have I not fired with zealous rage
To hear rebuke from some old sage,
Or read the apostolic page?
Sought out each fire-and-tow convention
Fierce for polemics and contention?
Have I not ever cast aloof
Instruction and ‘despised reproof,’
And as a consequence, you see,
Been full of general deviltry?
And now is this the way it ends?
Is this the way you ‘back your friends?’
Seemed suddenly to cross her mind,
And she went on in tone more civil;
‘It may be, though, that you're the devil;
130
We surely cannot disagree.
Have n't I left my proper sphere
To spread my scandals far and near?
Left my ‘old man,’ I swore to cherish,
To cold potatoes or to perish?
My poor neglected brats forsaken
Till you 've apprenticed them, and taken?
Have I not fired with zealous rage
To hear rebuke from some old sage,
Or read the apostolic page?
Sought out each fire-and-tow convention
Fierce for polemics and contention?
Have I not ever cast aloof
Instruction and ‘despised reproof,’
And as a consequence, you see,
Been full of general deviltry?
And now is this the way it ends?
Is this the way you ‘back your friends?’
| The harp and plow | |