He who holds friendship with a knave,
Will reputation hardly save;
And thus upon our choice of friends
Our good or evil name depends.
A wrinkled hag--of naughty fame--
Sat hovering o'er a flickering flame,
Propped with both hands upon her knees
She shook with palsy and the breeze.
She had perhaps seen fourscore years,
And backwards said her daily prayers;
Her troop of cats with hunger mewed,--
Tabbies and toms, a numerous brood.
Teased with their murmuring, out she flew
In angry passion: "Hence, ye crew!--
What made me take to keeping cats?
Ye are as bad as bawling brats:
With brats I might perhaps have grown rich;
I never had been thought a known witch.
Boys pester me, and strive to awe--
Across my path they place a straw;
They nail the horse-shoe, hide the broom-stick,
Put pins, and every sort of trick."
"Dame," said a tabby, "cease your prate,
Enough to break a pussy's pate.
What is our lot beneath your roof?
Within, starvation; out, reproof:
Elsewhere we had been honest mousers,
And slept, by, fireside carousers.
Here we are imps who serve a hag,
And yonder broom-stick's thought your nag;
Boys hunt us with a doom condign,
To take one life out of our nine."