Mother Goose for Grownups/The Commendable Castigation of Old Mother Hubbard

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118561The Commendable Castigation of Old Mother HubbardGuy Wetmore Carryl

She was one of those creatures
            Whose features
      Are hard beyond any reclaim;
And she loved in a hovel
            To grovel,
      And she hadn’t a cent to her name.
She owned neither gallants
            Nor talents;
      She borrowed extensively, too,
From all of her dozens
            Of cousins,
      And never refunded a sou:
Yet all they said in abuse of her
Was: “She is prouder than Lucifer!”
      (That, I must say, without meaning to blame,
      Is always the way with that kind of a dame!)

There never was jolli-
            Er colley
      Than Old Mother Hubbard had found,
Though cheaply she bought him,
            She’d taught him
      To follow her meekly around:
But though she would lick him
            And kick him,
      It never had any effect;
He always was howling
            And growling,
      But goodness! What could you expect?
Colleys were never to flourish meant
’Less they had plenty of nourishment,
      All that he had were the feathers she’d pluck
      Off an occasional chicken or duck.

The colley was barred in
            The garden,
      He howled and he wailed and he whined.
The neighbors indignant,
            Malignant
      Petitions unanimous signed.
“The nuisance grows nightly,”
            Politely
      They wrote. “It’s an odious hound,
And either you’ll fill him,
            Or kill him,
      Or else he must go to the pound.
For if this howling infernally
Is to continue nocturnally—
      Pardon us, ma’am, if we seem to be curt—
      Somebody’s apt to get horribly hurt!”

Mother Hubbard cried loudly
            And proudly:
      “Lands sakes! But you give yourselves airs!
I’ll take the law to you
            And sue you.”
      The neighbors responded: “Who cares?
We none of us care if
            The sheriff
      Lock every man jack of us up;
We won’t be repining
            At fining
      So long as we’re rid of the pup!”

They then proceeded to mount a sign,
Bearing this ominous countersign:
      “Freemen! The moment has come to protest
      And Old Mother Hubbard delendum est!

They marched to her gateway,
            And straightway
      They trampled all over her lawn;
Most rudely they harried
            And carried
      Her round on a rail until dawn.
They marred her, and jarred her,
            And tarred her
      And feathered her, just as they should,
Of speech they bereft her,
            And left her
      With: “Now do you think you’ll be good!”

The moral’s a charmingly pleasing one.
While we would deprecate teasing one,
Still, when a dame has politeness rebuffed,
She certainly ought to be collared and cuffed.