Only a woman's hair,
Long, delicate, and slender;
Light as the spider's silken lair,
Soft as a moonbeam tender.
One that some hapless swain
Might carry as a token
Of her he loves, yet loves in vain,
With constancy unbroken.
For such as this, I ween,
Knights dead and gone have battled;
When lance met lance in tourney keen,
And sword on buckler rattled.
And yet it makes me swear
At our confounded slavy;
For I'll be hanged if I can bear
Such relics in the gravy!
_Pick-Me-Up._