When Billy, the butcher-boy’s meat-chopping instrument
Chipped off the tip of his thumb,
At that very moment did Lily, the pantry-maid,
In for a cutlet come;
And stanching the wound with her clean linen handkerchief,
Skilfully bandaged and bound it,
And tearing a strip from her pretty white pinafore
Wrapped it around and around it;
And stoutly refusing to cheapen her charity,
Paid for the chop she was buying.
And if this little incident isn’t poetical,
Maybe I ought to stop trying.
From Boundaries
