A husband said unto his wife:
"Who deals in slander deals in strife;
Are we the heralds of disgrace,
To thunder, love, at all our race--
And, indiscriminate in rage,
To spare nor friend nor sex nor age?
Your tongue, love, is a rolling flood
That thundering onwards stirs up mud,
And, like to fame and human woes,
Progressing, strengthens as it flows."
"My husband," so the _tongue_ replies,
"So philosophic and so wise,
Am I to be--so wisdom ridden--
A parrot's privilege forbidden?
You praise his talk--smile at his squalling
Yet in your wife you deem it brawling:
Dear husband, must it still belong
To man to think his wife is wrong?
A lesson learnt from nature's school
Tells me to call a fool a fool."
But Nature disabused her words
By cat and monkey, dog and birds:
Puss spat and pug grinned at the scold,
The hound slunk off, the magpie told,
With repetitions, woman's rage;
Whilst poll, haranguing from her cage:
"Parrots for prattling words are prized;
Woman for prattling words despised.
She who attacks another's fame
Does but discredit her own name;
Upon her tongues malignant set,
And with good interest pay their debt."