Knights!—­whose hearts are so stout, and whose arms are so strong,
Learn,—­to twist a wife’s neck is decidedly wrong! 
If your servants offend you, or give themselves airs,
Rebuke them—­but mildly—­don’t kick them downstairs! 
To “Poor Richard’s” homely old proverb attend,
“If you want matters well managed, Go!—­if not, Send!”
A servant’s too often a negligent elf! 
—­If it’s business of consequence, DO IT YOURSELF!

The state of society seldom requires
People now to bring home with them unburied Friars,
But they sometimes do bring home an inmate for life;
Now—­don’t do that by proxy!—­but choose your own wife! 
For think how annoying ’twould be, when you’re wed,
  To find in your bed, On the pillow, instead
Of the sweet face you look for—­A SARACEN’S HEAD!

POMPEY’S GHOST:  THOMAS HOOD

’Twas twelve o’clock, not twelve at night,
    But twelve o’clock at noon;
Because the sun was shining bright
    And not the silver moon. 
A proper time for friends to call,
    Or pots, or penny-post;
When lo! as Phoebe sat at work,
    She saw her Pompey’s ghost!

Now when a female has a call
    From people that are dead,
Like Paris ladies, she receives
    Her visitors in bed. 
But Pompey’s spirit would not come
    Like spirits that are white,
Because he was a Blackamoor,
    And wouldn’t show at night!

But of all unexpected things
    That happen to us here,
The most unpleasant is a rise
    In what is very dear. 
So Phoebe screamed an awful scream
    To prove the seaman’s text,
That after black appearances,
    White squalls will follow next.

“O Phoebe dear!  Oh, Phoebe dear! 
    Don’t go and scream or faint;
You think because I’m black, I am
    The Devil, but I ain’t! 
Behind the heels of Lady Lambe
    I walked while I had breath,
But that is past, and I am now
    A-walking after death!

“No murder, though, I come to tell,
    By base and bloody crime;
So, Phoebe dear, put off your fits
    To some more fitting time. 
No coroner, like a boatswain’s mate,
    My body need attack,
With his round dozen to find out
    Why I have died so black.

“One Sunday, shortly after tea,
    My skin began to burn,
As if I had in my inside
    A heater like a urn. 
Delirious in the night I grew,
    And as I lay in bed,
They say I gathered all the wool
    You see upon my head.

“His lordship for his doctor sent,
    My treatment to begin;
I wish that he had called him out
    Before he called him in! 
For though to physic he was bred,
    And passed at Surgeons’ Hall,
To make his post a sinecure,
    He never cured at all!

“The Doctor looked about my breast
    And then about my back,
And then he shook his head and said,
    ‘Your case looks very black.’ 
At first he sent me hot cayenne,
    And then gamboge to swallow. 
But still my fever would not turn
    To scarlet or to yellow!