Classic Poem

MISS M ILLICENT M C M URTRIE was a stickler for propriety,
She knew the rules of etiquette from A right down to Z.
In all that sacred coterie that's known as High Society,
No one was quite so proper and fastidious as she.

She knew the knives and forks to use when dining with a gentleman,
Her conduct and deportment were inevitably right.
She knew exactly how to act toward any sentimental man;
Just when to ask him in the house and when to say good night.

Her manner was impeccable toward any maiden guest or aunt,
She knew how many cards to leave whene'er she paid a call,
And as for chicken salad on the menu of a restaurant,
Miss Millicent McMurtrie never ordered it at all.

One night as she was dining with the Bromleigh Parker-Jenkinsons,
Whose lofty social status makes Mount Everest seem flat,
For their mother was a Bromleigh and related to the Blenkinsons,
And anyone who knows must know there's nothing more than that,

While in her well-bred fashion she was having quite a night of it
A lapse occurred, the sort that happens one time in a life,
In a moment of forgetfulness — I shudder now to write of it —
Miss Millicent McMurtrie cut her salad with a knife!

A deadly pallor spread across the face of Parker-Jenkinson;
The second butler groaned and darted headlong from the room:
A tear dropped from the portrait on the wall of Major Blenkinson;
A silent horror filled the place — the silence of the tomb.

Then Bromleigh Parker-Jenkinson remarked with cold austerity:
" Some things we cannot tolerate, and you have gone too far.
The breach that you've committed must be treated with severity.
Our Second Man will get your wraps, and see you to your car. "

Then out into the dark and icy night she staggered tearfully,
Aghast at the disgrace that stained her once unblemished name,
The ruins of her wrecked career crashed down upon her fearfully,
Alone was Miss McMurtrie with her sorrow and her shame.
Through Newport and Southampton spreads the story grim and sinister,
At clubs and social functions where the haut monde congregate.
The debutante and dowager, the banker and the minister
Discuss in furtive whispers Miss McMurtrie's sorry fate.

*****

Upon a squalid cot a woman lies with no one near to her;
The tragic marks of illness line her one-time lovely face;
In rags of wretched poverty, abandoned by all dear to her,
Miss Millicent McMurtrie pays the price of her disgrace.